As campaigning has intensified once again in Kerala’s Chengannur Assembly constituency where polling for a by-election is to be held on May 28, the CPI(M)-led ruling lDF, which had won the seat in the 2016 election, is finding the going tough, thanks mainly to the lapses of the Home Department looked after by the Chief Minister himself. The Election Commission had announced the bypoll schedule on Thursday.
At the time of stepping up its preparations last month for the by-election, necessitated by the death of sitting CPI(M) member KK Ramachandran Nair on January 14, the front’s leaders and campaign leaders had hoped of a comparatively easy victory in Chengannur but sources in the CPI(M) now admit – though not openly – that they had lost that advantage following recent incidents of alleged atrocities from and lapses on the part of the police.
“Varappuzha is near Kochi and is over a hundred kilometers away from Chengannur but a custodial murder there seems to be powerful enough to cause serious changes in the electorate’s mood,” said a CPI(M) leader in the constituency referring to the death in police custody of Sreejith (26) of Varappuzha on April 9 for which four police officials have been arrested.
The Ernakulam district leadership of the CPI(M) is now facing the charge that the police had arrested Sreejith by falsely implicating him in a case relating to the suicide of a neighbour and subjected him to third degree torture methods in their custody leading to his death as per instructions issued by it. The Government is charged with efforts to protect the actual culprits.
The Congress-led UDF and the BJP-headed NDA have already made the custodial murder a big campaign point in the constituency and are using it to convince the people that Kerala has already slipped into fascist rule under Marxist CM Pinarayi Vijayan and that a left victory in Chengannur would mean an endorsement for its alleged “tyranny”.
The controversies surrounding the manner in which the police had handled the case of disappearance and murder of latvian woman liga Skromane (33) at Kovalam, Thiruvananthapuram also have generated negative feelings about the lDF Government and its Home Department among the Chengannur electorate, the leader says.
“At least 16 custodial deaths have occurred since the lDF came to power less than two years ago. That is a record. At least 17 political murders have taken place during the same period. Atrocities against Dalits and women are on the rise. The police are under the CPI(M)’s cell rule. Shouldn’t we make these our campaign issuesIJ” asked a Congress leader.
Added to this is the feud within the lDF pertaining to the CPI(M)’s plan to seek the support of the former Congress ally, Kerala Congress (M) of KM Mani, who was forced to resign as minister in the previous Congress-led UDF government over the allegation that he had taken Rs 1-crore bribe from the State’s bar owners.
CPI, the second biggest lDF partner, has already publicly aired its objections to the CPI(M) plan to woo the KC(M) and this has led to a war of words between the State secretaries of the two parties while Mani is allegedly trying to spoil the situation further for the left by accusing the CPI of trying to defeat lDF candidate Saji Cherian of the CPI(M).
Observers are of the opinion that the lDF has reasons to worry in Chengannur especially because the constituency is witnessing an extremely tough triangular contest.
“It is an election in which all the three fronts stand almost equal chances of winning. That complicates the left’s worries,” said senior journalist BS Panicker.
Hoping to convert the by-poll into its threshold to capturing power in the State, the BJP has fielded one of its most influential leaders, former State president PS Sreedharan Pillai, as the NDA candidate. He himself had fought the 2016 election here for the party and he had then increased its vote share to 42,682 from the 6,062 votes it had polled in 2011.
The candidate of the UDF, which had won the seat in all the elections between 1991 and 2011, is D Vijayakumar, an immensely popular local leader and a State secretary of the Congress. “All are equally strong but Saji was certainly in the lead till last week. That situation seems to be changing rapidly,” said Panicker.
