Kannur/Trichur: The two opposing main political fronts in Kerala have initiated efforts to corner the likely BJP votes in the Thalassery and Guruvayur assembly constituencies as the right-wing party won't have any candidates here after an embarrassing bungling with the nomination papers.
Apart from facing the ignominy of not having candidates in the two crucial constituencies, the BJP would be answerable if any of the two major fronts, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the United Democratic Front (UDF), were to secure its votes in the assembly elections.
The LDF and UDF have already started trading charges against each other over the likely movement of the BJP votes. The CPM is alleging that the BJP votes shift to the Congress and the latter is claiming that the Marxist will secure the saffron party's votes.
On Monday, the Kerala High Court had rejected the pleas of the BJP nominees for the Guruvayur and Thalassery legislative assembly constituencies against the rejection of their nomination papers by electoral officers last weekend.
The nomination papers were rejected by the electoral authorities during scrutiny on Saturday owing to apparent lapses. The BJP then decided to challenge the actions legally, but the High Court refused to intervene.
Both Thalassery and Guruvayur were significant in BJP's election plans.
Thalassery
In the last assembly elections BJP's V K Sajeev had secured 22,152 votes while the margin of victory of CPM's A N Shamsheer was 34,117 votes. This time also Shamsheer is in the fray. From UDF it is M P Aravindakshan this time.
The UDF had secured 36,624 votes in last election.
There are no strong independent candidates in the fray who the BJP can support. The BJP leaders say if their candidates are not cleared in the further legal proceedings then it will declare its stand subsequently.
Here the poll battle now will be primarily between Shamseer and MK Aravindakshan of the Congress.
Guruvayur
In the last assembly elections the BJP had secured 25,450 votes from the Guruvayur seat and hoped to improve its performance in the 2021 edition. With the goof-up BJP won't have a candidate in this constituency which houses the famous Lord Krishna Temple at Guruvayur.
Now the main contest will be reduced to CPM's N K Akbar and Muslim League's K N A Khadar.
Khader remarked that he would not say no to any potential votes. Akbar on the other hand alleged that the rejection of BJP candidate's nomination papers hints at a tacit understanding between the Congress, Muslim League and the BJP.
Even though the Democratic Social Justice Party, which is contesting the polls on the slogan "poverty has no religion", had expressed its desire to become part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, the move didn't succeed initially. Even belated efforts in this regard are on as it became clear Monday that the NDA won't have a formal candidate.
The state treasurer of DSJP Dilip Nair, who has already filed the nomination, may get the NDA backing. A decision is likely soon, latest by Wednesday.
Sundara withdraws nomination in Manjeshwaram
The namesake of K Surendran, the BJP state chief and candidate from the Manjeshwaram legislative assembly constituency, won't be in the poll fray for the upcoming Kerala state polls.
BSP candidate K Sundara withdrew his nomination to contest from Manjeshwaram after intense efforts over the last one-and-a-half days.
K Surendran had personally called me and requested me to withdraw the nomination. There are no threats or offers behind the decision, Sundara stated.
Earlier, the BSP had alleged that their candidates had been abducted by the BJP.
Sundara also informed that he had joined the BJP and would work for the victory of party state president Surendran who is contesting from the constituency.
On Monday, Sundara arrived at Kasaragod collectorate from the BJP's election office to withdraw his nomination.
In the 2016 assembly polls Sundara had secured 467 votes while Surendran lost the election by a slender margin of 89 votes.
