THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With just a few days ahead of the May 16 Assembly polls, all the three candidates of the major fronts in the Parassala Assembly constituency are nevertheless looking for an emphatic win. Interestingly, Parassala is the constituency which is having the highest number of voters (2,08,815) in the district, according to the statistics of the Election Commission of India. The constituency has a significant proportion of tribal, Nadar and Nair voters.
Though the three candidates of the major fronts - INC, CPM and BJP - are confident of their win by bagging at least a 10,000-vote majority, a tough battle is ahead for them considering the element of caste polarisation.
Ever since the delimitation, there has been a paradigm shift in the traditional and communal vote banks of the constituency.
Of the nine panchayats under the constituency, eight are ruled by the LDF and one by the UDF. Moreover, the LDF trumped the rival fronts with a thumping victory in the district panchayats of Parassala and Vellarada. Though the LDF has an upper hand considering the resounding victory in the last LSG polls, UDF and the NDA have enough influence among voters in some panchayats like Amboori, Ottasekharamangalam and Kallikadu.
Though all the candidates bank on development mantra, the sitting MLA A T George needs to sweat it out for a win.
Reason: The people of the constituency are still craving for basic developments in terms of good roads and drinking water supply. One could realise that the interior roads in this constituency are in bad shape especially those close to the hilly areas.
However, George dismissed the allegations saying that he had contributed a major chunk of his MLA fund for the development of the constituency. In fact, George who seeks the people’s mandate for the second time exuded confidence of his win with a thumping majority ranging between 7,000 and 10,000 votes. Despite listing out the developmental activities he had taken up in the past five years, he is also pitching the voters to develop the hilly region of the constituency into a world-class tourism zone.
Meanwhile, LDF candidate C K Hareendran is seeking mandate for the first time during his 45-year-long political career. Though he had served in many positions in the district and state committee of the CPM, his experimentation in reaching out to the public is yet to be figured out.
Hareendran alleged that the development in the constituency is paralysed and the interior areas of the constituency had not seen any sort of development. BJP candidate Karamana Jayan is also equally confident of winning the polls by attracting the upper caste Hindu votes as there is a good chunk of Nair votes in the segment. However, Jayan dismissed the possibilities of a caste polarisation and he alleged that his rival candidates are trying to attract the caste votes by and large.