The Hindu : Kerala News : Koothuparamba: red bastion braces for another poll battle

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Kerala

Kerala

Koothuparamba: red bastion braces for another poll battle

Staff Reporter

Congress hopes to make inroads into CPI(M) support base

P. Jayarajan

KOOTHUPARAMBA: Normal election campaign themes culled from live issues concerning people perhaps do not make as much sense in this Communist heartland as issues of party political rivalry.

Here, campaigning for the rival candidates, P. Jayarajan of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and K. Prabhakaran of the Congress, centres around confrontational issues such as political violence, which only reveals too clearly the turbulent political fault lines in the region. If the Left Democratic Front (LDF) campaigners highlight the "setbacks" of the United Democratic Front (UDF) Government, the UDF campaign talks about the achievements of the Government, including restoration of political peace in the district.

Going by the electoral history of this constituency, it is a difficult task for the UDF to capture it. The constituency has been electing CPI(M) candidates to the Assembly since 1970. The Congress candidate, however, can hope to make some inroads into the CPI(M) support base. The resentment among Kerala Dinesh Beedi workers against the CPI(M)-controlled management of the co-operative, according to Mr. Prabhakaran, gives him hope that he can cause an erosion of CPI(M) votes here.

K. Prabhakaran

Mr. Prabhakaran can certainly take consolation that he has already won a legal battle against Mr. Jayarajan. Mr. Prabhakaran had initiated the legal battle that led to the Supreme Court disqualifying Mr. Jayarajan for his having been sentenced to more than two years' imprisonment at the time of the 2001 Assembly election. They were rivals in 2001. While Mr. Prabhakaran claims that Mr. Jayarajan's disqualification was a victory of desire for peace over criminal politics, the latter counters this saying that he himself was a victim of brutal violence, as he was nearly killed in an attack by BJP/RSS workers in 1996. This election, according to Mr. Jayarajan, has been necessitated because of his rival candidate's refusal to accept the people's mandate in the constituency.

The battle of ballots here is as much about winning the seat as about changing margins of victory. Mr. Jayarajan won by a margin of 18,620 votes over Mr. Prabhakaran in the 2001 Assembly election here. The CPI(M) candidate for the Kannur Lok Sabha seat polled 31,580 votes more than his Congress rival in the 2004 Lok Sabha election. The LDF campaign controllers are leaving nothing to chance in their efforts to ensure an increased margin for Mr. Jayarajan, as a decline in the margin would be construed as a setback to the CPI(M) in its stronghold.

UDF campaigners, for their part, raise the issues of the CPIM)-sponsored water theme park at Parassinikkadavu and the crisis in the Kerala Dinesh Beedi. The CPI(M) leaders here believe that these issues are unlikely to cause any shifting of political fault lines in the constituency. They make much use of the LDF's allegation that there was a secret understanding between the Congress and the BJP/RSS in the constituency. The BJP did not field its candidate in the 2001 election. But the NDA candidate polled 6,219 votes in the 2004 Lok Sabha election.

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