KOZHIKODE: The battle in Beypore is between the CPM legacy and Congress youth. With decades’ long political experience, V.K.C. Mammadkoya is fighting to retain the communist citadel while Adam Mulsi, the youthful Congress candidate, is challenging him with his five years’ work there after his electoral debacle in 2011.
It was the intense campaign unleashed by Adam Mulsi and team earlier that forced the CPM to pick up VKC who had almost settled down with his mayoral duties. It is a tough time for this comrade-turned industrialist who is not much serious about the strict campaign schedules of the party and the blitzkrieg unleashed by Adam.
When DC caught up with him at his home at Olavanna near Beypore, he was cool. How does he manage to be cool? “It is simple. I still keep in touch with all those who have known me from the past, even from the days when I was a manual labourer at the age of 14. “Still I maintain the relationship with all my old comrades,” VKC said, waving his hands at many voters passing by. “I know most of them in person,” he adds. His first lap of house visit started at Naduvattam.
When a few women came to wish him saying that they work in his company, VKC said, “see, the BJP leaders say that my company provides employment only to Bengalis and Biharis.” “But where is development?” asks Adam Mulsi. “There is no drinking water in most parts of the constituency,” Mulsi says. “For decades, they have ruled the constituency,” Mulsi pointed out. In his speech at each point, Mulsi harps on the developmental angle hitting at the LDF for the neglect of the constituency.
Though VKC has an edge, the Congress camp is confident that they could create wonders as its candidate is strong. “In 2011 he was a novice in the constituency. But now he is not. He stayed back and has become the son of the soil,” says a Congress man. You wait for miracles.
This time the CPM citadel would fall,” he adds. The majority gained by the LDF in the constituency has been on a steady decline from 19,618 in 2006 to 5316 in 2011. Yuva Morcha state president Prakash Babu is the NDA candidate. In 2011, the BJP had won 11,040 votes.
