THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The 15th Kerala Assembly that will be formed later this month will have one member short of the 141-member house that has been the structure since the delimitation in 1977. The nominated Anglo Indian member will be absent as the Anglo-Indian reservation to assemblies and Lok Sabha got cancelled with the passage of 126th constitution amendment act in Parliament in December, 2019. CPM leader John Fernandez, who is the nominated MLA of the outgoing assembly, will be the last Anglo Indian representative.
“I don’t wish to be part of history like that. There is no rationale in denying Anglo Indian community the deserved reservation benefit. This is unfortunate,” John Fernandez told TNIE. The Anglo Indian community raised strong protest over the withdrawal of reservation when the act had been passed in Parliament.
The 2011 census figure that said there were only 296 Anglo Indian community members in the country was quoted by the central government as a reason to stop the practice of reservation. “In fact, in Kerala alone there are over 1 lakh community members. I think the enumerators got terribly wrong on the count by listing Anglo Indians under Latin Catholic community as most of the community members are members of LC church,” said Fernandez.
The community will go unrepresented in the assembly as major fronts hadn’t fielded Anglo Indian community members in general seats. But, the representation of other Christian denominations is fair with members of Roman Catholic, Latin Catholic, Orthodox, Jacobite, CSI and Mar Thoma sects finding place in the assembly.
Another curious element of the new assembly will be the absence of MLAs with caste surname. Chavara MLA Sujith Vijayan Pillai is a technical exception, as the ballot paper had his surname as Vijayan Pillai. But, his affidavit filed before the election commission has his name on record as Sujith V. In the 2016 assembly, there were three members with caste surnames - K Suresh Kurup from Ettumanoor, K K Ramachandran Nair from Chengannur and N Vijayan Pillai from Chavara. Unfortunately, Ramachandran Nair and Vijayan Pillai died during tenure of house.
Among the Hindu communities, Ezhava and Nair castes have dominant representation. There are 27 Ezhava MLAs in the House and 26 of them are from LDF. K Babu who won from Tripunithura is the lone Ezhava MLA from UDF. From both fronts, over 20 Nair MLAs have also been elected. MLAs from fringe Hindu communities like Padmasaliya and Ganaka are also part of the assembly.
SC/ST REPRESENTATION
The representation of SC/ST members is confined to statutory reserved constituencies. Of the 16 SC/ST reserved constituencies (14 SC and two ST), 14 were bagged by the LDF. Congress candidates I C Balakrishnan won from Sultan Bathery and A P Anilkumar from Wandoor.