THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state Congress leadership which was on cloud nine following the sweep in the general elections felt the heat after two of its sitting assembly seats —Vattiyoorkavu and Konni — were wrested by CPM candidates with convincing margins. The party can heave a sigh of relief following the stellar performance of its lone woman candidate Shanimol Osman who defeated Manu C Pulickal of the CPM with a slender margin of 2,079 votes braving all odds, including a hostile SNDP.
The Congress is in an introspection mode with the leaders discussing in private on the role played by caste and community organisations in the elections. However, senior Congress leaders are of the opinion that the party has done well in wresting Aroor, a red bastion of the CPM, and that it was after six decades that a Congress candidate has won from the seat.
“Congress and UDF have done well in the elections, and we had wrested Aroor. In Konni, we have to do an introspection and in Vattiyoorkavu, there was a clear understanding between the BJP and the CPM with the former transferring votes to the LDF candidate. In Ernakulam, the dip in percentage of votes affected our lead, but we won the seat and in Manjeshwar, it was a glorious victory for the Muslim League candidate,” KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran told TNIE.The Congress state president, however, said inputs from party grass root level leaders would be solicited to examine the loss of two seats.
Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala also ruled out the charge that the open support extended by the NSS had boomeranged at Vattiyoorkavu and Konni and said that in byelections, the party which is in power will influence certain sections and that the community organisation’s support had not failed the Congress.
“The victory in Aroor cannot be taken in a light manner. We have wrested that seat from the CPM’s red fort,” Chennithala told TNIE.While the Congress leaders could console themselves with the victory at Aroor, at the ground level this can be seen as a setback to the party by losing Vattiyoorkavu and Konni.
The Konni seat has been a fiefdom of Adoor Prakash ever since he wrested it from the CPM in 1996 and in the 2016 assembly elections, he had won by a margin of 20,745 votes. The loss at Konni has left the Congress leaders red-faced. Pathanamthitta DCC president Babu George has already come out against the loss of Konni seat and said that ‘sabotage’ had taken place.
People are not puppets of community leaders: CM
T’Puram: The people in the state are not puppets in the hands of any community or religious leader, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday said referring to the NSS’ ‘right distance’ stance in the elections which came a cropper. He said the people cannot be controlled or led by tying them with the “tail of a dhoti” by someone, without directly referring to the name of NSS general secretary G Sukumaran Nair. It’s normal that political parties and candidates would pay a visit to religious or community leaders during the time of election as they visit representatives of other bodies or of people from various strata. But this should not be taken or viewed as the weakness of a political party or a candidate, the chief minister said.