ALATHUR: The Alathur Lok Sabha reserved constituency is spread over the two districts of Palakkad and Thrissur and has traditionally stood with the Left parties. Since 1977, for 32 years, it was the Ottappalam Lok Sabha constituency and in 2009 it became the Alathur Lok Sabha constituency. It consists of the Assembly segments of Vadakkencherry, Chelakkara and Kunnamkulam of Thrissur district and Alathur, Tarur, Nenmara and Chittur Assembly constituencies in Palakkad district. When it was the Ottappalam LS constituency, it was represented by former President K R Narayanan thrice.
When K R Narayanan landed as a Congress candidate after ending his foreign service stint, he was lampooned by his political adversaries that he does not know even to wear a ‘mundu.’ However, Narayanan not only wore a ‘mundu’ and solicited votes but also scored a hat trick from the constituency in 1984, 1989 and 1991. When the Ottappalam constituency was carved out in 1977, it was Congress candidate K Kunhambu who won the seat. In 1980, the CPM won the seat through present Cultural Affairs Minister A K Balan. It was in 1984 that Narayanan ended his diplomatic career and took to the political arena by winning the seat thrice. In 1993, after his victory in 1991, Narayanan resigned his seat to become the Vice-President candidate of the Congress.
It was then that S Sivaraman, who was a law student at that time was fielded by the CPM (in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition) and he defeated K K Balakrishnan of the Congress by a record margin of 1,32,652 votes. Subsequently, S Ajay Kumar replaced S Sivaraman as the CPM candidate and represented the constituency four times, in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2004. Ajay Kumar thus won the seat four times and K R Narayanan three times. While Narayanan defeated A K Balan in the first instance, his rival in the next two contests was the late film director Lenin Rajendran. In 2009, after the delimitation exercise, the Alathur LS constituency was born.
