KOCHI: A battle royale is pepping up the contest in the royal and temple town of Tripunithura with three members of the royal family locking horns in the Ambalam ward while 16 of the remaining 48 wards in the municipality too witness keen triangular contests with the BJP making a significant foray this time.
Generally, there is no heated campaign even at this fag end in the municipal area.
The current municipal chairman R. Venugopal is facing a tough triangular contest in ward number 37. He had been a councillor since the formation of the municipality in 1978.
The other prominent candidates in the ward are R. Vijayakumar of the BJP and S. Madhusoodanan, LDF, who is also a sitting councillor.
The UDF is not facing serious rebel menace in the municipality but there is disgruntlement among leaders who were denied seats.
They may mar the UDF prospects. A large number of new faces are being fielded by all the fronts this time. “The old faces are limited to a dozen,” said a UDF worker in the area.
In the Ambalam ward, LDF’s Geetha Varma, BJP’s Radhika Varma and UDF’s Urmila Varma are locking horns.
The LDF has positioned Geetha Varma as the chairperson candidate. Dr Geetha Sajeev, Maths professor with BPC College, Piravom, who is contesting from the Choorakkad ward, is being positioned as the UDF candidate for chairperson.
The chairperson post is reserved for woman this time. Vice-chairperson in the current council Thilothama Suresh who is contesting from the Hill Palace Ward is another UDF aspirant for the chairperson post.
Altogether there are 161 candidates in the municipality spread in 29.17 sq km area having 63,408 voters. The lowest number of votes in a ward is 900 while the highest is 1850.
In the last council, the UDF had 24 councillors against 22 LDF councillors and one BJP and two independent coucillors. K.G. Sathyavrathan, a former councillor, is another prominent UDF-supported independent contesting from ward Number 17 (Mekkara) who defected from the CPM.
The UDF is projecting the development it brought while the LDF and the BJP promise more.
