Kerala’s Malappuram lok Sabha Constituency, where former Union Minister late E Ahamed won in both the elections held since its formation after delimitation in 2009, is known as Kerala’s Muslim league country and not many expect Wednesday’s by-election to produce any big change. However, the CPI(M)-led lDF and the BJP were confident that 'Malappuram has changed' with the campaigning came to an end on Monday evening.
For the Muslim league, second biggest constituent of the Congress-led UDF, the bypoll is a battle of prestige. For the left, it is an opportunity to prove that its popularity has not waned due to the failures of its ten-month-old Government. The BJP, which had scored merely 5.61 per cent of the total votes polled in 2014, wants to ‘surprise’ everyone.
“You will see the BJP working wonder this time. The league fortress will crumble. Our vote-share will soar,” claims BJP candidate N Sreepr-
akash. “Everybody says the Muslim league is unbeatable in Malappuram. But the truth is that Malappuram is changing,” Sreeprakash, who was the BJP candidate here in 2014 also, says.
Not less confident is young lDF candidate MB Faisal of the CPI(M). He is also banking on the theory that Malappuram is changing and the Muslim league is ‘no more the big choice’ of the voters in the Constituency. He goes further to claim that the choice in Malappuram is ‘between secularism and communalism, between corrupt UDF and lDF’s good governance.’
But such claims do not worry Muslim league candidate and former State Minister PK Kunhalikutty at all. The concern of Kunhalikutty, currently MlA from the Vengara Assembly segment falling within Malappuram Constituency is not victory - he does not have any doubt about it - but it is about how immensely he could increase the winning margin compared to the 2014 election.
Ahamed, whose death necessitated the bypoll, had won the seat in 2014 by beating CPI(M)’s PK Sainaba by a margin of 1,94,739 votes and by bagging 51.29 per cent of the total polled votes. He himself had won the 2009 election by beating CPI(M)’s TK Hamza and his winning margin then was 1,15,597. In 2009, the BJP’s vote-share was a mere 4.61 percent but this climbed to 64,705 in 2014. But Hamza, who had scored a surprise win in the Manjeri lS seat, which later became Malappuram, in 2004 for the left, believes that surprises does happen — like in his own case — in elections. “Malappuram is set to see a repeat of 2004. Cracks have already appeared in the Muslim league fortress,” he says.
The outcome of the bypoll does not have any crucial political significance in the national or State level though State CPI (M) secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan had at the very beginning of the campaign said it would effectively be a review of the performance of the lDF Government.