KOCHI: With barely two weeks left for the Thrikkakara bypoll, the political outfits are leaving no stone unturned in ensuring the votes of the techies and professionals in the constituency. The constituency, which has an urban nature, has about 3,000 IT employees as voters. Now that campaigning is in full force for the bypoll, the candidates and leaders have embarked on meeting and interacting with techies with political leanings to ensure their support.
MP Shashi Tharoor, who is the president of All India Professional Congress, spearheaded the party’s campaign for Uma Thomas among professionals with debate and interactive programmes, while former finance minister T M Thomas Isaac was the main speaker in the meeting organised by the pro-Left collectives of professionals. MLAs P C Vishnunadh, and Mathew Kuzhalnadan, CPM leaders M Swaraj and T V Rajesh also attended the sessions. Interestingly, development is being widely debated in these meetings.
“We have launched the campaign meetings to explain our policies and ideologies to the professionals and youngsters. It was the UDF that brought considerable development to the IT sector in the state. Infopark and SmartCity are the projects launched during the UDF regime. Persons like Shashi Tharoor have a clear vision on the changes to be brought in IT sector. Hence, we roped him in for campaigning here,” said district Congress president Mohammed Shiyas.
On Wednesday, LDF candidate Dr Jo Joseph shared his views on the overall development of Infopark while addressing IT professionals. “My priority is to address the drinking water shortage and waste disposal issues of Infopark. In the case of waste disposal, a cost-effective solution is the need of the hour,” he said.
“It’s a positive thing that political fronts are ready to hear the voice of the professionals. The LDF candidate himself is a professional and it would make an impact among the voters,” said Ashik C Sreenivasan, state joint coordinator of Prathidhwani Kerala, a welfare organisation for IT employees at Infopark. The BJP has already launched a campaign via social media to woo the professionals. They are conducting virtual rallies and live streaming of the campaigning of NDA candidate A N Radhakrishnan.