Registering the state’s highest polling percentage of 81.61, Vadakara Lok Sabha seat continues to hog the limelight even after the polling for the 2014 LS elections.
The close contest between Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Mullappally Ramachandran and DYFI leader A N Shamseer had assumed national attention with the politically sensational T P Chandrasekharan murder case dominating the electioneering. With the voters already given their verdict, both the fronts exude confidence of winning the seat with a thumping margin. While Mullappally is confident of improving his lead in the previous poll, the LDF camp is expecting a repeat of 2004 elections wherein CPM’s Satheedevi won with a margin exceeding 1.3 lakh votes.
The polling percentages of Vadakara constituency in 2009 and 2004 were 80.40 and 75.83, respectively. Both the Fronts agree that higher voting percentage would not attribute an advantage to any candidate. But the million-dollar question is whether the community card played by the CPM will pay off or not. Surely, the brisk polling has confirmed that the Muslim community had actively taken part in voting. But nobody seems to have a clear picture about who would reap its benefits. Has the IUML succeeded in ensuring its votes or was it a consolidation in favour of Shamseer?
Talking to Express, Mullappally said the initial assessment of polling in Vadakara revealed that there were no undercurrents within the UDF voters. “There were no unpleasant or negative factors against me. The IUML leadership was able to operate its party machinery effectively and its activists joined the election campaign as well as voting with much excitement. I am very confident that I will come through with a thumping majority,” he said.
But, the CPM has predicted that Shamseer would touch the LDF’s lead in 2004 and the party is also relying on its margin of 57,000 votes in the Assembly elections in 2011. “It is a false prediction based on wrong statistics.
Basically, CPM does not have that kind of party machinery now as it used to have a decade ago. Moreover, their attempts to play community card have turned counter-productive. The party candidate’s attempts to appease the community created a silent but steady consolidation of other communities towards the UDF. The LDF’s lead in Assembly elections is less significant as issues being discussed in both elections are totally different,” he pointed out.
Meanwhile, LDF Vadakara Lok Sabha constituency committee general secretary M V Jayarajan said that Shamseer would lead in all the seven Assembly constituencies. “The results would be a repeat of 2004 elections. It would be people’s ire against the anti-people policies of the UPA and the UDF governments. Even the employees are denied salary on the occasion of ‘Vishu’ festival. Given these factors, the people would vote against the UDF candidate,” he said. Though polling was peaceful across the constituency, which is infamous for the presence of a large number of sensitive, vulnerable, critical and Maoist-threat booths, the UDF camp has come out with allegations of bogus votes in Thalassery and Koothuparamba constituencies. “We had noticed a collusion between the booth-level officers and presiding officers in Thalassery and Koothuparamba Assembly constituencies favouring the CPM activists to do bogus voting extensively,” Mullappally alleged.