THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With hardly a month remaining for assembly elections, political fronts are in the final round of discussions to field a suitable candidate in the 140th constituency -- Neyyattinkara -- at the southern end of the state. Though the LDF have already announced the candidature of current legislator K Ansalan, the UDF and the NDA camps are expected to finalise their respective candidates by Wednesday or Thursday, sources said.
According to a source close to the UDF camp, former MLA R Selvaraj and former Neyyattinkara municipal councillor Vinod Sen, a lawyer, are the front-runners to become the UDF candidate, with Selvaraj holding an edge. The draft list of candidates is expected to be out on Monday.
The BJP, considering the Nadar votes in the constituency, may pick the Vaikunta Swamy Dharma Pracharana Sabha (VSDP) chief Vishnupuram Chandrasekharan as VSDP is now part of the NDA. They are expected to finalise it within three days, with the possibility of fielding a candidate from BJP not ruled out. Among the names talked about are BJP Neyyattinkara mandalam secretary Suresh Thampi and Neyyattinkara councillor Manchathala Suresh.
Meanwhile, the LDF is confident that Ansalan will be re-elected and, this time, the winning factor will solely be the development schemes he has completed and not caste-based politics. The sitting MLA has already highlighted the developments he has brought to the constituency including the timely completion of rural roads, new primary health centres and basic infrastructure in rural areas.
Ever since the delimitation of the constituency, which brought the panchayats of Kulathoor, Chenkal and Karode into the Neyyattinkara assembly constituency from Parassala, caste-based votes have become a crucial factor. Over the past decade, the winnability of a candidate has depended on the polarisation of ‘Nadar’ votes even though the constituency has a good number of ‘Nair’ votes. Hence, all three fronts have been vigilant to field candidates from the Nadar community.
“The candidates in UDF and NDA will be finalised only after considering all factors including the community vote bank into consideration,” said N Sreekumar, a political analyst.In the 2016 elections, Ansalan won with a margin of 9,543. He received 63,359 votes while Selvaraj got 54,016. The BJP candidate, Punchakari Surendran, got only 15,531 votes.