KANNUR: Anthoor municipality, a CPM stronghold, is gearing up for a tough battle in the upcoming elections, with both UDF and NDA preparing to challenge its dominance.
In a significant political move, the UDF had reopened its Anthoor Congress mandalam committee office at Bakkalam after a gap of four and a half decades, marking the party’s re-entry into the local political scene, despite contesting the last two elections without a party office.
Anthoor, which became a municipality in 2015, was earlier a panchayat that had been merged with Taliparamba in 1990.
Kannur DCC president Martin George said, “With the opening of the new party office in Anthoor, Congress workers have regained their enthusiasm and energy. There has been a great change in the political scenario in Anthoor.”
In the 2015 local body elections, 14 wards in the municipality saw no opposition candidates against the LDF, highlighting the party’s absolute dominance in the region. However, by the 2020 elections, that number dropped to just six, signalling a shift in the political landscape as both the UDF and NDA began to strengthen their presence and field candidates across more wards.
Interestingly, Kanool and Morazha remain the only two wards that have consistently gone uncontested in favour of the LDF in the last two local body elections. Since its formation in 2015, the municipality has remained a stronghold of the LDF, which secured victory in all 28 wards during both the 2015 and 2020 local body elections.
The Anthoor mandalam committee office was reopened on the 30th death anniversary of Anthoor Dasan, the former mandalam president who was killed in 1995.
Recalling the incident, the DCC noted that during the 1995 panchayat elections, CPM workers, angered by Dasan’s decision to field Congress candidates in Anthoor, brutally hacked him to death on October 26. Following his murder, political activities of Congress in the area had come to a standstill, as CPM dominance and threats prevented the reopening of the committee office for decades.