Kerala - Kozhikode   

Tribal-dominated North Wayanad is cynosure of all eyes

R. Madhavan Nair

Adivasi Gothra Maha Sabha leader C.K. Janu is in the fray here as Independent

KOZHIKODE: The election to the State Assembly from the tribes-dominated North Wayanad constituency is of special interest to observers of the State political scene. Not just because it is the lone seat reserved for the Scheduled Tribes in the State. More important is the amazing fact that the Congress which had won it eight times in a row has readily handed it over to the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML). And the League, in turn, has nominated P. Balan, a member of the Kurichiya tribe, as the UDF candidate in the election scheduled on April 29.

The exchange of seats was to enable K. Muraleedharan, president of the Democratic Indira Congress (Karunakaran), an ally of the United Democratic Front (UDF), to contest from Koduvally where the IUML is believed to have enough votes to ensure his first victory in the Assembly elections.

Enhancing political interest in the election here is the presence of the tribal leader C.K. Janu in the fray. She is contesting as an Independent, representing the Adivasi Gothra Maha Sabha of which she is the president. She is supported by farmers' organisations, the Indian Farmers Movement (Infam), and the Farmers Relief Forum.

Left Democratic Front (LDF) campaign manager P.V. Sahadevan, however, believes that Ms. Janu is not an important factor in the election here. But he admits that she has the ability to garner votes in Tirunelli, which has a large tribal vote bank, which would otherwise have been polled in favour of the LDF candidate K.C. Kunhiraman. Mr. Kunhiraman is a former member of the Panamaram grama panchayat and the Wayanad district panchayat.

IUML campaign manager Azeez says ``our candidate belongs to the Kurichia community. He had won an election to the Wayanad district panchayat as an IUML candidate. We consider him as our candidate even though he has the mind of a Congressman. Mr. Balan belongs to a family rich in Congress traditions."

A recurring theme in LDF campaign is that Mr. Balan, though fielded by the IUML, is a BJP man at heart and had attended a programme at Ayodhya in 1992. But IUML campaigners believe that the slogan would not sell since it was used unsuccessfully against him by the LDF in the district panchayat elections as well.

The LDF candidate is unfazed by the pro-UDF electoral history of North Wayanad. In 2001 Radha Raghavan of the Congress got re-elected by a comfortable margin of 13,845 votes. It was her husband the late K. Raghavan who won in 1980, 1982 and 1987. Everyone expected her to be the UDF candidate in this election as well. She had resigned from the Assembly to express her solidarity with the DIC(K) leader K. Karunakaran when the Congress split recently. The LDF camp hopes that the disappointment of local Congressmen with their leadership's decision to give the seat to the IUML would be reflected in the result.

Mr. Kunhiraman had contested three Assembly elections unsuccessfully from North Wayanad, but his camp is confident that the tribal leader (he is secretary of the CPI(M)'s tribal wing Adivasi Khsema Sabha) would be lucky in his fourth attempt.

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