The Congress decision to field K Sabarinathan in Nemom looks like a reckless retaliatory strike against the CPM's 'independent' move in Palakkad. And the potential martyrs: Ramesh Pisharody in Palakkad and V Sivankutty in Nemom.

Sabarinathan comes across as a conscientious and erudite young leader but Congress circles in Thiruvananthapuram say that he is not even half K Muraleedharan in terms of both popularity and experience. To deny BJP a win in Nemom, the thinking within the party is that a leader with a far greater stature should have been chosen.

"We should not forget that in 2021, the Congress party very nearly got Oommen Chandy to contest from Nemom," a top district Congress leader said. It was after Chandy declined that Muraleedharan accepted the challenge. It were the 15,000-17,000 votes that he mined from the BJP that thwarted Kummanam Rajasekharan's win and allowed Sivankutty to triumph even though he secured less votes than when he lost in 2016.

Now that Muraleedharan is contesting from neighbouring Vattiyoorkavu, the party wanted another senior leader of equal stature or higher to take on the job. That Congress MPs with high acceptability quotient like Shashi Tharoor, Shafi Parambil, K C Venugopal and even K Sudhakaran were seriously considered as Congress candidate in Nemom indicated that the party was willing to sacrifice one of its top names to prevent a BJP win. Nemom was the only constituency where the Kerala unit of the party was willing to make an exception to the rule that MPs should be kept out of the Assembly race.

CPM's biriyani challenge
It was then that the CPM chose restaurateur N M R Razak, the owner of N M R Group of Restaurants and the man behind 'Rawther Biriyani', as the LDF Independent in Palakkad.

It was after a quarter century that the LDF was fielding a Muslim candidate in Palakkad. After CPM's T K Noushad lost to Congress's K Sankara Narayanan in 2001, the LDF has never tried a Muslim candidate in Palakkad.

The first reason was that after Noushad lost, K K Divakaran had managed to lure Muslim votes to the CPM fold in 2006. Then in 2011, just when the BJP's growth looked more than incremental, the Congress introduced Shafi Parambil, a young Muslim with secular credentials. Now, Ramesh Pisharody's arrival seems to have nudged the CPM to explore the Muslim card.

Brotherhood in tatters
To the Congress, Razak's candidature felt like, in the words of a Congress leader, "the betrayal of the secular brotherhood". "It was with the help of Muslim votes that the Congress has always kept in check the rise of the BJP in Palakkad. Roping in a popular Muslim businessman in the area was a clear attempt by the CPM to split the Muslim votes in Palakkad and pave the way for a BJP win," a senior leader in Palakkad said.

Fearing a BJP win, Muslim votes in Palakkad had flowed almost en masse to the UDF candidate in the last one-and-a-half decade. Unofficial estimates with political parties say that Muslims constitute a decisive 25 per cent of the voters in Palakkad. It were Muslim votes that turned decisive when BJP's E Sreedharan very nearly upset Shafi Parambil in 2021.

Tit for tat
Sabarinathan was Congress's tit for CPM's Razak tat. Here's the Congress message: If you want us to fall in Palakkad, steel yourself for the rout of Sivankutty in Nemom.

"Last time, Muraleedharan cornered 25 per cent of the votes and prevented a BJP win. I am not sure whether Sabarinathan can guarantee that," a Congress leader in Nemom said. "Nemom is a place where we don't have an organisation to speak of. Muraleedharan mobilised local party workers by his sheer presence, not with money or any other promises," the leader said.

After the 'Palakkad slight' the Congress virtually abandoned the "secular brotherhood". There were plans to field the feisty 24-year-old Vyshna Suresh, the Congress councillor from Muttada, as the Nemom candidate. However, it was reasoned that if the BJP won, the Congress would be accused of facilitating the victory by being too frivolous about candidate selection.

Sabarinathan might not have the charisma of certain leaders in the party but he still has earned for himself a respectable position. So even if the BJP wins, the Congress hopes that Sabari's presence will help the party deflect the charge of an unholy alliance with the BJP.