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KOZHIKODE/KOTTAYAM: Ever since the cobbling together of United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala in 1970 in the lone Christian pocket in Muslim-majority Malappuram, the front has become the political platform for minority communities that amount to 45% of the electorate.
The political experiment helped shape UDF’s rainbow political base, bringing together the bulk of Muslims mostly concentrated in Malabar (26.6% as per 2011 census) and Christians based in central Kerala (18.4%) and aligning them with Congress’ traditional anti-Marxist vote base spread across various communities. This political experiment was key to Kerala’s four-decade-old alternating LDF and UDF regimes.
This time, LDF managed to make inroads into what UDF had considered as its electoral fixed deposits.