PALAKKAD: Never has the Brahmin community in Palakkad been wooed so vigorously in an assembly election as being done this time. The Kalpathy agraharam and Nurani agraharam in Palakkad Municipality, Kodunthirapully gramam in Pirayiri panchayat and Mathur agraharam have a cluster of houses with a sizeable Brahmin population. All these areas come under the Palakkad assembly constituency.
“There are around 25,000 eligible voters belonging to the Brahmin community in the constituency. The Kerala Brahmana Sabha follows an equi-closeness with all political parties and not equidistant. Therefore, we have left it to the members to choose the political party they want to vote for,” said Karimpuzha Raman, state president of the sabha.
The NDA, on its part, has been carrying out house visits with BJP candidate E Sreedharan giving short speeches and visiting institutions inside the agraharams and also temples. BJP’s focus on the community’s votes became evident when BJP district president E Krishnadas presented the replica of a decorated chariot to Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a poll rally in Palakkad on Tuesday.
The Brahmin community had migrated to Palakkad in the 13th and 14th centuries from the Cauvery plains in Tamil Nadu. They feared that they would not be able to perform their vedic rites if the Mughals invaded their land. “In the past, the older generation was proud of the freedom struggle and Mahatma Gandhi and Jawharlal Nehru were their idols. But members of the new generation involve themselves in local politics based on their perception,” said P N Lakshminarayanan, the nonagenarian who wrote the historical book on the Tamil agraharams of Palakkad, ‘From Cauvery to Nila’.
The Congress has also been focusing on house visits in the agraharams. The candidate, Shafi Parambil, himself has visited many houses personally. “We have replaced the overhead cables with underground cables. We have allotted funds for providing street lights and also for the renovation of the chariots. The Kalpathy river has also been cleaned,” said C V Satheesh, mandalam president of the Congress.
The BJP is more upbeat. “Our candidate Sreedharan has visited all agraharams in Kalpathy, Nurani, Kodunthirapully and Mathur. We hope to get most of the votes from these agraharams. The people here had waited to see Sreedharan till 9-10pm and hear his words,” said Krishnadas. It will be proved on the day of the results as the response has been overwhelming, he added.
The CPM candidate, C P Pramod, has also held campaign meetings in these areas. However, the land reforms initiated by the Left government in the past which took away landed properties of the temples had caused some discomfort among the community members. “The LDF government has initiated many development schemes in these settlements which we think will benefit us,” said a CPM leader.