The Hindu : Kerala News : Electioneering for bypolls picks up momentum

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Kerala

Kerala

Electioneering for bypolls picks up momentum

Mohamed Nazeer

In Koothuparamba and Azhikode

KANNUR: Electioneering for the byelections in the Koothuparamba and Azhikode Assembly constituencies is gaining momentum with the major candidates and their party machineries beginning the campaign in right earnest.

The two constituencies will be the destinations of State leaders of the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in a couple of days as the campaigning picks up.

P. Jayarajan of the CPI(M) and K. Prabhakaran of the Congress in Koothuparamba and M. Prakashan of the CPI(M) and C.A. Ajeer of the CMP in Azhikode are busy doing campaign tours. Booth-level committees are being fine-tuned for the battle.

Dress rehearsal

More than the electoral outcome in the two constituencies, the bypolls will be keenly watched as a dress rehearsal of the election strategies and campaign themes to be honed for the next Assembly election.

Koothuparamba is going to the polls because of the Supreme Court's quashing of Mr. Jayarajan's election on the ground that he was, at the time of filing nomination in 2001, awarded, by a trial court, a prison sentence for more than two years in a case in connection with a protest march. The bypoll in Azhikode was necessitated by the death of the CPI(M) MLA, T.K. Balan.

The electoral history of Koothuparamba shows that it has been a formidable CPI(M) fortress for over three decades. The party's only concern, according to campaign managers there, is how to improve upon the 31,580 vote margin, its candidate, A.P. Abdullakutty, secured in this segment in the 2004 Lok Sabha election. It was a massive margin when compared to the 18,620 votes with which Mr. Jayarjan pulled off his maiden electoral victory in 2001. The constituency has been electing CPI(M) candidates from 1970. The constituency elected the CPI(M) leader, Pinarayi Vijayan, in 1991 with a 13,000-odd margin and the party candidate, K.K. Shylaja, won the seat with a margin of 18,993 votes.

UDF campaign

The UDF, for its part, will use all the weapons in its armoury to embarrass the CPI(M). The crisis in the Kerala Dinesh Beedi cooperative society, in which the CPI(M) has a powerful stake, is a major campaign theme of the UDF in the constituency, which has a substantial number of beedi workers. The water theme park being developed at Parassinikkadavu by a society sponsored by the CPI(M) is also being raised by the UDF.

Where will the 6,000-odd votes earned by the BJP in the constituency in the 2004 Lok Sabha election go this time as the party has not fielded its candidate now? What will be the impact of the National Congress (Indira) on the electoral prospects of the fronts? These are the questions to be raised in the course of the electioneering in the constituency.

All these themes and issues will be raised no less strongly in the Azhikode constituency as well where the late T.K. Balan romped home in 2001 with a margin of 9,796 votes.

Mr. Abdullakutty's margin in the constituency in the 2004 Lok Sabha election was 19,204 votes. The constituency has been a stronghold of the CPI(M) which, however, faced a setback in 1987 when M.V. Raghavan, who was expelled from the CPI(M), captured the seat with a margin of 1,389 votes with the support of the UDF.

While the CPI(M) sees the 1987 outcome as an aberration, the UDF takes it as a source of hope that they can put up a stiff fight there. UDF campaigners also points to the fact that the 14,445 margin that T.K. Balan secured in 1996 came down to 9,796 in the 2001 election.

The BJP bagged 3,877 votes in the 2001 Assembly election in the constituency and 4,513 votes in the 2004 Lok Sabha election.

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