Battle lines are drawn for the Lok Sabha election from Kerala scheduled for April 26 as the last of the candidates submitted their nomination papers on Thursday, the last day for filing the same. There are 20 seats at stake from the State and the main contest in Kerala is between the CPI(M)-led LDF, the Congress-led INDIA alliance and the BJP-led NDA.
The NDA’s challenge is limited to just three or four constituencies while in the remaining 16 seats the fight is between the LDF and the INDIA alliance. The Muslim League and various Islamist parties have asked the Election Commission of India to shift the polling day as Friday is inconvenient for the Muslim community. They point out that even the CPI(M), which calls for bandh/hartal at the drop of a hat makes it a point not to disturb the community by calling for shut down on Friday.
V Muraleedharan, Union Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, who is the BJP candidate in Attingal, suffered a setback on Wednesday as two senior members of the Karavaram Panchayath resigned from their posts and the party.
Karavaram is the only local body in the Attingal constituency which is under the control of the BJP. Earlier, two BJP Councillors of Attingal Municipality had quit the party because of their Opposition to Muraleedharan being made the candidate at Attingal.
The Union Minister, known as P Chidambaram of Kerala (as he does not interact with party cadres) is pitted against the CPI(M) district secretary V Joy and the sitting member Adoor Prakash (Congress).
Both Joy and Prakash are known for their easy accessibility while Muraleedharan, who hails from northern Kerala, always keeps away from party cadres.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Prakash won by a margin of 38,247 votes against his nearest rival A Sampath of the CPI(M) while Shobha Surendran of the BJP sprang a surprise by polling 2, 48,000 votes (24.9 per cent).
The party cadres were hoping that the party would field Shobha from Attingal in this election as she had established a good rapport with the voters.
Muraleedharan had made it to the Union Council of Ministers through the Rajya Sabha and is yet to win even a panchayat election from the State, said Sudheer Damodaran, a commentator.
In nearby Thiruvananthapuram constituency, Shashi Tharoor is slowly inching ahead in the campaign though he was trailing behind Union Minister of State Rajeev Chandrasekhar of the BJP. The TV news channel owned by Rajeev Chandrasekhar (Asianet) is a known pro-CPI(M) channel and is popular because of its anti-Narendra Modi blitzkrieg.
Rahul Gandhi, who filed his nomination papers at Wayanad on Wednesday returned to Delhi after a road show which saw thousands of INDIA alliance activists coming together to express solidarity with the young leader.
“It is a foregone conclusion as he is going to win by a record margin this time too,” said VD Satheeshan, Leader of Opposition in Kerala Assembly.
K Surendran of the BJP and Annie Raja (spouse of D Raja) are his rivals.
In 2019, Rahul had won by more than 4,00,000 votes from the constituency. As things stand today, the BJP may have to wait for years to touch the double digit seats in Kerala. “If they win one seat, that will be a major achievement,” said A Jayashankar, author and political commentator.
