Senior citizens in Kalpathy are worried about COVID-19 vaccination delays these days.
“How long do we have to wait for the jab?” asks 65-year-old Ramanthan.
“Why is there no intimation from the health department?” Raghuram, 68, sounds furious.
Kalpathy is the Brahmin hamlet in Palakkad town where a majority of the residents are above 60 years. They know that senior citizens (above 60 years) get priority for inoculation, but what causes the delay is their inability to complete the mandatory online registration formalities.
“We are not comfortable with the online registration procedures. We are very old and the new technology is not meant for us. Why did the government insist on online registration?” fumes 70-year-old Balu Vadyar, who is the village priest.
Vaccination delays, however, have not taken their interest off the Assembly election scheduled for April 6.
“Vaccination or no vaccination, we will definitely cast our vote. It is our duty,” says Ramanthan.
However, people here appear to be reluctant to talk politics publicly. “It is not good to talk about politics in public. I will vote for change. Many people in this hamlet think on the same lines,” he says.
Ramanthan’s cryptic statement means that he wants to see either a change of guard at Thiruvananthapuram (a vote against LDF) or a new representative for Palakkad (a vote against UDF).
Shafi’s hat-trick chance
Palakkad assembly constituency, of which Kalpathy is a part, will once again witness a high-voltage three-way fight among Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and CPM-led Left Democratic Front.
Shafi Parambil, who is the state president of Congress’ youth wing, the Indian Youth Congress, is aiming for a hat-trick of wins. He defeated CPM’s K K Divakaran by 7,403 votes in 2011. He was re-elected in 2016 with a win over BJP’s Shobha Surendran by 17,483 votes. CPM’s senior leader N N Krishnadas finished third.
Congress has not officially nominated Shafi so far. But the party’s decision to field incumbent MLAs appears to be an endorsement for his candidature.
Shafi says he is confident of another victory. “I have given preference to development over politics. Palakkad residents, who draw the benefits of the development, will surely give me another mandate,” he said.
But infighting in Congress poses a major threat to his chances. Veteran party leader A V Gopinath recently raised a banner of revolt for denying him ticket for the Assembly election with the support of former Chittur MLA K Achuthan and VC Kabeer. Shafi may lose crucial votes if the party leadership fails to placate the senior dissidents.
BJP, which won the Palakkad municipality in December 2020, could pose biggest threat to Shafi.
“Winds of change are blowing through Palakkad. BJP is here to win the seat,” said BJP district president, E Krishnadas.
“If we could grab power in Palakkad municipality, we could easily emulate the show in Palakkad assembly constituency too,” he said.
Asked about who will be the BJP candidate, Krishnadas said on Friday: “We will finalise the candidate soon. You may expect a huge surprise.”
Metroman E Sreedharan to contest?
Rumours that E Sreedharan, popularly known as the ‘metroman’ for his role in materialising Delhi and Kochi metro train services, may represent BJP in Palakkad have been doing the rounds for quite some time.
Sreedharan joined the BJP recently. He reportedly requested the party leadership to field him from a seat near to his home in Ponnani in Malappuram district. Palakkad fits the bill perfectly.
BJP hopes to capitalise on Sreedharan’s popularity among urban middle-class voters.
A few days after joining the saffron party, the soft-spoken technocrat surprisingly endorsed BJP's hardline Hindutva stand on beef consumption and ‘Love Jihad’, a term coined by right-wing outfits to allege a conspiracy by Muslim men to marry women from other religions solely to convert them to Islam. He said that he has an aversion to beef-eaters and ‘Love Jihad’ is prevalent in Kerala. It is tough to predict how voters in Palakkad would react to his statements.
Statistics favours UDF
Three gram panchayats - Kannadi, Pirayiri and Mathur - and Palakkad municipality come under the constituency.
NDA won the Palakkad municipality in the local body election. It won 28 seats, while UDF emerged as the main opposition party with 14 seats. LDF finished third with 7 seats. Independent candidates won two seats and the Welfare Party of India got one seat.
UDF is ruling Mathur and Pirayiri gram panchayats while LDF is in power in Kannadi.
Overall statistics apparently favours the UDF.
UDF won 35 seats from all local bodies, while NDA won 30 and LDF got 27.
UDF polled 48,663 votes while LDF came second with 44,878. NDA finished third with 38,444 votes.
Shafi said UDF performance in the local body poll was below par. “Nonetheless, the coalition is in the lead. This shows that Palakkad constituency is a UDF citadel.”
CPM harps on Muslim vote
CPM district secretary CK Rajendran said his party will reclaim Palakkad constituency.
“The political equations in the constituency are changing now,” he said, citing the recent trends from the local body elections where LDF won two minority-dominated neighbourhoods.
“We captured two seats from the Indian Union Muslim League. This augurs well for us in the Assembly election,” he said.
Rajendran said minority communities have lost faith in the UDF. “They trust only the LDF now,” he said.
Election issues
NDA and LDF have been attacking Shafi for failing to complete the reconstruction of Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) terminal and digitisation of Moyans Model Girls Higher Secondary School.
“Shafi has failed to bring development to Palakkad. He could not reconstruct the KSRTC terminal. His plan to upgrade the prestigious city school too did not take off. We will highlight his failures in the election campaign,” Krishnadas said.
Shafi, however, blamed the LDF government for the delay.
“The projects would have been completed had the LDF government sanctioned funds. I sanctioned Rs 8.05 crore from my local area asset development fund for the bus terminal project, but the government deliberately delayed the project only to defame me. When I raised the issue in the Assembly, the transport minister gave a clean chit to me,” he said.
KSRTC operates inter-district, and inter-state buses to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu from Palakkad. The old bus stand was demolished before launching the project and this deprived commuters of basic amenities.
Shafi said he raised the delay in school digitisation in the Assembly and the education minister promised to complete the project soon. “The government issued an order a day before the model code of conduct for the election came into force. I hope the project will be finished soon,” he said.
