Alathur: It’s 8.30 pm and the narrow alley at Vannur in Alathur is lined up by men, women and children to catch a glimpse of Ramya Haridas, the Congress candidate and a member of the ‘Rahul brigade’. The president of the Kunnamangalam block panchayat in Kozhikode district has already created a flutter in the distant Alathur, a CPM citadel, with her captivating rendering of folk songs and a calculated pitching by the NGOs she has been associated with.
“Rahul Gandhi is going to become the prime minister,” she tells the 100-odd strong audience standing atop her campaign vehicle. “And the question which constituency will benefit the most from a Gandhi-led government has only one answer,” she stops short of naming Alathur but reminding her voters that she was chosen by none other than the Congress president. “And I will be a full time MP,” she taunts his opponent D. P.K. Biju, the two-time MP looking for hat-trick in the SC reserved constituency, who is accused of being inaccessible.
Darkness settles but she has to meet many more people at many more places. At 10 pm, she switches the mike off but continues with the road show. At Vanniyar Veedhi, hundreds of people, mostly women, gather to listen to her, with some asking for a rendition of a song which she politely refuses. “We want a change,” many of them told this correspondent. The eminently presentable and seemingly articulate young woman candidate has injected some vigour into the Congress campaign.
“I do not talk about Sabarimala in the meetings,” she later told this correspondent. “Nor do I talk politics, for they know it. They read newspapers and watch the news on TV. I limit myself to talking about the work I would do if I am elected.”
The CPM is mindful of the flutter the ‘apolitical’ Congress candidate is creating in a constituency which has long been voting for hammer, sickle and star. “We know how they try and create some excitement among the people,” said a CPM supporter, busy organising a reception for Dr Biju at nearby Kolakkode “But that would not wash among the people with solid political consciousness.”
And Dr Biju’s short address reflects the candidate and the politics he represents. “Narendra Modi is undermining the democratic institutions while the LDF government is trying to build an alternative path to what the BJP and the Congress advocate,” he tells his audience. “Your vote will be decisive in this fight to position the left as an alternative.” He rebuts the allegation that he was an absentee MP. “I was involved every developmental work and the large amount of money spent here stands testimony to my commitment,” he told this correspondent.
Not to be left out, the BDJS candidate T.V. Babu banks on the nearly 90,000 votes the BJP polled in 2014. “The political factors are very much in favour of NDA,” he said. “The Parambikulam-Aliyar water treaty can be reviewed every 30 years, the LDF and the UDF have chosen to ignore this serious issue.”
“Yes, there is a curiosity element about the Congress candidate but it is on the wane as she is exposing herself,” said one associate of Dr Biju. “This is a political fight.”
But the CPM is not waiting for the curiosity element to vanish nor it is planning to allow a newcomer to create an impression that the party is vulnerable in Alathur. The state leadership has taken notice of the demand for ‘change’ in Alathur and is understood to have directed its senior leaders to stay put and plug the holes. While local administration minister A.C. Moideen is leading the effort in Kunnamakulam which he represents in the state assembly, water resources minister K. Krishnan Kutty of JDS is busy fighting off threats from Chittur, his borough. So is minister for culture A.K. Balan in Tharur.
The CPM’s hopes for a hat-trick in Alathur depend on its ability to convince its traditional vote base that change can wait and the survival of its brand of politics is a more serious challenge now.
