KASARGOD: Three candidates of the CPM are likely to win unopposed in Madikai grama panchayat, where the Marxist party enjoys a brutal majority. However, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alleged its candidates were not allowed to file nomination papers by the CPM. The CPM’s candidates V Radha in ward 11 (Kakkat), Rama Padmanabhan in ward 12 (Adukathparambu), and panchayat presidential candidate S Preetha in ward 13 (Chalakadavu) were declared winners as no candidate filed nomination papers against them.
“The BJP candidates could not file nomination papers in the three wards because the CPM threatened the proposers of our candidates,” said BJP’s Kanhangad mandalam president N Madhu.In 2015, the BJP contested in all the 15 wards but the UDF had contested only in five wards. This year, too, the BJP announced candidates in all the 15 wards. Ward no. 1 (Vazhakode) is an old bastion of the BJP, and the CPM has just around 70 votes in an electorate of 1,400. But the CPM lords over the rest of the 14 wards. Yet, the BJP has been steadily increasing its vote base in all the wards of the panchayat.
In the 2015 local body election, the BJP got 129 votes in ward 11, 116 votes in ward 12, and 82 votes in ward 13 -- not enough to win but more than enough to announce its growing presence. According to election rules, a resident of the panchayat can contest in any ward of the panchayat, but the proposer has to be a voter of the respective ward. The BJP said that in ward no. 11 and 12, the proposers mustered the courage to sign on the nomination papers but more than 100 CPM workers went to their houses and threatened and forced them to back off. Madhu said their party supporters were not even ready to approach the police fearing for the lives and properties.