Kannur: In 2022, the CPM and the Kerala Police branded one set of Youth Congress protesters as potential murderers and hijackers for raising slogans against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on board an Indigo aircraft when it landed in Thiruvananthapuram from Kannur. In 2023, another set of Youth Congress workers waving black flags at the Chief Minister were brutally assaulted by DYFI workers with a helmet, a flowerpot and an iron rod.

In the first instance, Pinarayi Vijayan urged the UDF to “show basic decency and condemn the protest”, even as he defended the police for invoking charges of attempt to murder and endangering the aircraft under the Aircraft Act and civil aviation security laws. In the second instance, he dismissed the murderous attack on the Youth Congress workers as DYFI’s “rescue operation”, lest they come under his luxurious Nava Kerala Sadas bus.

By 2025, the Youth Congress protesters, bruised and brutalised, have become the faces of resistance, leading the UDF’s charge in the CPM’s heartlands in Kannur, Kalliasseri, Cherukunnu, Keezhallur, and Koodali, and inspiring Congress supporters in neighbouring CPM “party gramam” such as Kankol-Alappadamba.

“The stance the Congress took with respect to the protesters is the message. Look at how people are responding to Sabarinadhan in Thiruvananthapuram,” said Youth Congress Kannur District Vice-President Farzin Majeed, the first accused in the aircraft protest case.

Congress state general secretary K S Sabarinadhan was the vice-president of the Youth Congress when three Youth Congress leaders -- Farzin Majeed (30), Naveen Kumar R K and Sunith Narayan -- staged an ambush protest before Pinarayi Vijayan onboard the Indigo flight.

The former MLA Sabarinadhan, who is the fourth accused in the aircraft protest case, is leading the UDF’s charge in Thiruvananthapuram Corporation as its mayoral candidate. He contests from the Kowdiar ward, where the Congress won by just one vote in 2020.

Sabarinadhan is the most high-profile of all the accused and victims of protests. The others are leading the fight far from the spotlight and in hostile terrain -- but already causing a stir.

Farzin is heading the UDF’s campaign in Keezhallur grama panchayat -- a CPM stronghold and home to the Kannur International Airport. Naveen Kumar R K -- Youth Congress Mattannur Block president and the second accused, who CPM leader E P Jayarajan pushed down in the aircraft -- is the UDF campaign chairman in the neighbouring Koodali grama panchayat, another CPM bastion.

Sunith Narayan, the third accused who shot the video of the protest inside the aircraft, is contesting from Nayattupara, ward No. 9 of Koodali panchayat, where the Congress usually wins against the CPM, though by a narrow margin. After delimitation, it will be harder, but Sunith has air under his wings. The Union government had declined to sanction prosecution under the Aviation Safety Act and the Aircraft Act, despite eight requests from the state government.

From flowerpot to bouquets
The Congress has also given seats to the three Youth Congress protesters assaulted by DYFI workers during the Nava Kerala Sadas -- one at the grama panchayat, one at the block panchayat and one at the Kannur District Panchayat.

Mahitha Mohan, the Youth Congress district vice-president, is the Kannur District Panchayat candidate from Mathamangalam, a newly carved division that even her party admits will not be easy to win. But she is not new to uphill battles. “I was out campaigning in Mathamangalam and several people told me they would like to vote for me, but if they expressed that publicly, their vote would be cast before they reached the polling station,” says Mahitha. During the Kalliasseri protest, she had her left arm twisted so severely that her shoulder was dislocated. “The blows aimed at Sudheesh landed on me too,” she says.

Mahitha comes from Ramanthali, a grama panchayat where the Congress is on a weak wicket. In the panchayat, the IUML has well-fortified pockets, and the CPM holds its ground. In the 2020 elections, the IUML won six seats and the CPM eight, retaining control of the 15-member panchayat board. “The Congress won just one seat, which could also have been stolen,” she says.

The one seat the Congress won was ward 13, Ramanthali Central, where Mahitha was the Congress booth agent. She says she stayed at the booth till the last vote was cast, calling out bogus voters despite mounting threats and abuses. “After polling, the police escorted me out along with the EVMs. I didn’t go home for a week,” she recalls. That night, firecrackers and country-made bombs burst outside her house. The Congress won Ramanthali Central by just 65 votes.

Her political activism cost her her job as well. For eight years, she worked as an assistant to a Lieutenant Commander (equivalent to an Army Major) at the Indian Naval Academy at Ezhimala. There was never a complaint, and then she took part in a protest against the disqualification of Rahul Gandhi as a Lok Sabha member after his conviction in a defamation case in March 2023. “I was arrested during the protest and put in Kannur Women’s Jail for three days. Soon after, my officer got an anonymous letter alleging he was employing a person facing criminal charges. Then the police refused to give me a clearance certificate, which I must submit every year,” she says. The Naval officer finally let her go, saying holding on to her would affect his job. “I had done nothing wrong… But I accepted it because I didn’t want anyone else to suffer because of me.”

Political violence has marked her family, too. After the 2010 local body election, her brother Sunil, then a Congress booth agent in Ramanthali, had his right leg hacked; he still limps. Mahitha says the protest against Nava Kerala Sadas was also spontaneous after the police detained KSU students of Co-operative Arts & Science College at Madayi near Pazhayangadi, close to the Nava Kerala Sadas.

She said the police put the KSU students under preventive detention around 11 am because they came in black shirts for a college event. “The police kept them till 5.30 pm without food or water. Those who went to check on them or offer food or water were detained as well,” Mahitha says. “That’s when we decided to wave the black flag at the CM,” she says. And that became the first protest against Nava Kerala Sadas in Kerala.

Youth Congress Kalliasseri Block Secretary Sudheesh Vellachal is the Congress candidate from Mattul North division in Kalliasseri block panchayat. “The party gave me the safest seat in the block,” says Sudheesh, who suffered a blood clot in the brain after being hit with a helmet and a flowerpot. Three years later, the clot is still there. “Its size has neither increased nor shrunk. Doctors said if I ever suffer memory loss or feel nausea, it is a cause for worry,” he says.

Every month, he goes for a scan at a private hospital in Mangaluru. “The party is bearing the treatment cost,” says Sudheesh, who comes from a CPM family but was drawn to the Congress’s student organisation when he was at Sir Syed College, Taliparamba. He is expected to win, as the UDF had a 70% vote share in Mattul North before delimitation.

Aiming to upset CPM at Cherukunnu
Puthen Purayil Rahul, another Youth Congress protester who was attacked that day, contests from Dalil ward of Cherukunnu panchayat, another CPM bastion. Of the 13 wards, the UDF won only one in 2020 — Mundappuram, reserved for the Scheduled Caste.

Before Rahul’s candidacy was announced, the CPM had zeroed in on a party sympathiser for Dalil. “When Rahul’s name was announced, the CPM fielded an area committee member. Now a Branch Committee secretary is also in the fray, saying the area committee member is an outsider,” says Sudheesh. The Congress sees the trouble in the CPM as a reaction to Rahul’s candidacy. “He comes from a Gandhian family. His candidature has unsettled the CPM, though Dalil is LDF’s sitting seat,” says Sudheesh.

Youth Congress District President Farzin Majeed (30) and Youth League Mattannur Mandalam president Shabeer Edayannur (35) are running a never-seen-before campaign in Keezhallur, where the UDF is a fringe player. They have branded their election campaign ‘Keezhallur must change’. Every morning, they lead around 50 to 100 UDF supporters on walks across all 16 wards. The supporters wear T-shirts with the slogan ‘Maranam Keezhallur’.

“This was unthinkable earlier. And we never had this kind of backing from the youths,” says Congress’s Anitha N K (55), a two-time panchayat member (2010 & 2015) and now the UDF candidate from Elambara division in Iritty block panchayat.

Farzin and Shabeer have not only injected energy into the UDF campaign in a panchayat where the UDF has never won more than three wards, but they have also pulled the IUML and Congress together. “In Keezhallur, Congress and IUML did not always act like allies. When I won from Edayannur ward in 2020, I had to defeat the CPM and also the Congress candidate. But this time, well before the election, we decided to fight as one,” says Shabeer.

The unity has stirred the UDF and unsettled the LDF. “There are wards where the CPM holds unchallenged power. They don’t ‘book’ the walls because no other party would dare write graffiti or put up posters there. But this time, we entered those areas, and we saw ‘Booked’ painted across many walls. They knew we were coming,” Shabeer says.

The close fights in Koodali
Naveen Kumar, who is leading the UDF campaign in Koodali, says the contests are closer than they appear. In 1995 and 2000, the LDF only had a narrow lead. But with every delimitation, the LDF widened the gap, yet the winning margins remained less than 50 votes in several wards, he says. “Particularly because CPM supporters have started looking for alternatives.”

In Kanad (airport ward) in Keezhallur, the Congress lost by two votes in 2020, and the party did not campaign there or read the mood of the people. Similarly, in Bankanapparamb ward (16) in Koodali panchayat, the BJP lost to the CPM by two votes in 2020.

Naveen is in charge of Panalad , Kodolipram and Kunnoth wards. None of them is easy, but he is making a contest out of it. Sunith Narayan, contesting in ward Nayattupara, has a fighting chance to retain the ward. “The CPM chokes the voters in different ways; controlling the MGNREGS workers’ jobs is one way,” says Sunith, the Youth Congress Mattannur Block Secretary.

Going after business
Sunith Narayan and Naveen Kumar work at the Cooperative Employees’ Cooperative Society in Mattannur. Soon after the aircraft protest, the government withheld the gold loan licence of the society, saying its appraiser had not attended a training programme. “It was a one-week programme, and soon our appraiser attended the training, but the government did not restore the licence. For any society, gold loan is the biggest business,” said Naveen Kumar, the society’s secretary.

The government restored the gold loan licence one-and-a-half years later, after Naveen approached the high court and got a favourable order. “They will go to any extent to suppress protest and punish the protesters,” said Farzin. But these young Congress workers are forcing the CPM to defend ground it once considered untouchable