Whichever way northern Kerala’s Kozhikode lok Sabha constituency votes, the winner will be a Raghavan: Congressman MK Raghavan of the UDF, who is also the sitting MP, or lDF candidate A Vijaya Raghavan of the CPI(M). Even poll managers of both the fronts refuse to say more than this when they speak earnestly.
Observers say that this is a big tragedy the left is facing in Kozhikode. “There was every opportunity for the left to improve its performance here and even win the seat. But the positive factors seem to have been be overshadowed by a negative sentiment in the electorate over a gruesome murder two years ago,” says Vinod Nair, a social worker in Kozhikode city.
Vinod was referring to the murder of rebel Marxist leader TP Chandrasekharan of Onchiyam, a village in the district, by a Marxist killer gang on the night of May 4, 2012. The CPI(M) has claimed that the murder was the result of a personal enmity between partyman KC Ramachandran and the rebel leader but the people are not prepared to agree with it.
Onchiyam falls under the neighbouring Vadakara constituency but the murder had shocked the entire Kozhikode district. “The murder has affected the CPI(M) very badly,” says Sudhakaran P, a partyman from Kunnamangalam, an assembly segment in the lok Sabha constituency. “Most of those who had protested against the rebel murder were active party workers,” he says.
The left is also in confusion about the position the Muslim community, a big force in Kozhikode, may take in this election. But the UDF too has issues to worry about, like the sharp fall in the price of natural rubber, especially in areas like the Balussery Assembly segment apart from other general matters that might affect it in the State level.
A total of 13 candidates are in the fray in the Kozhikode constituency, including the two Raghavans of the UDF and the lDF, BJP’s CK Padmanabhan (fondly called as CKP in the party and outside), former Kerala president of the party, and State coordinator of the Aam Aadmi Party KP Ratheesh.
Observers pointed out that Kozhikode was a seat Vijaya Raghavan, a senior central committee member of the CPI(M), could hope to win. In 2009, MK Raghavan of the Congress had won the seat by a narrow margin despite the presence of a clear pro-UDF sentiment across the State.
The election in 2009 was held after a prominent faction in the Janata Dal (S), which had been claiming to be a big power in Kozhikode, had quit the lDF. Also, CPI(M) candidate PA Muhammad Riaz was not a hugely popular man. Despite all that, Raghavan could manage to get only an 838-vote margin, showing clearly that Kozhikode was tilting towards the left.
This obvious tilt had worried the UDF because Kozhikode was being considered as its “sure seat”. The UDF had won it in seven of the ten elections held since 1977. That this tilt was there was evident also in the fact that the left could bag five of the seven Assembly segments in the 2011 State election.
“What is to be seen now is whether issues like the Chandrasekharan murder are capable of reversing that tilt. The strategists of the UDF or lDF are unable to make claims of victory in Kozhikode confidently. Now they are trying to figure out what rise could occur in the BJP’s vote-share and how the AAP is going to perform,” says journalist Muhammad Riyas.
V Muraleedharan, presently State BJP chief, had bagged 11.25 percent of the polled votes in Kozhikode in 2009 and Padmanabhan is expected to take this to at least 15 percent. While the CPI(M) expects this increase to hit the UDF candidate, the Congress thinks that the additional votes CKP bags will be coming from the CPI(M)’s middle class Hindu support base.
