THRISSUR : As the candidates of all three major fronts are running around in the scorching sun to woo voters, this 70-year-old man in Thrissur is relaxing at home after filing his nomination paper for the Lok Sabha elections.
However, Divakaran Pallath is certain that the votes he would gain will be crucial for the poll results, as it happened during the maiden Lok Sabha election of former chief minister K Karunakaran in 1996.
After serving a brief period as Union Minister for Industries, Karunakaran contested for MP from Thrissur constituency. CPI’s V V Raghavan and BJP’s Rema Reghunandan were his opponents. Putting an end to the much-expected presence of Karunakaran in national politics, he lost to Raghavan. While Karunakaran secured 3,07,002 votes, Raghavan managed to bag 3,08,482 votes, winning by a majority of 1,480 votes. What turned out to be crucial in that election was the 2,247 votes Divakaran Pallath gained.
“I didn’t ask anyone to vote for me nor did I participate in any public gatherings. I was against loudspeaker announcements too. But to my surprise, I garnered more than 2,000 votes which indirectly paved the way for Karunakaran’s defeat. It came as a shock to me. This time too, since Thrissur is witnessing a tough fight with all three major fronts fielding their best candidates, I am sure that when the votes split, history may repeat itself,” says Divakaran.
He says that the Left tried their best to beat Karunakaran in 1996. In his opinion, many who didn’t want to choose both CPI and Congress chose him.
When Divakaran filed the nomination in 1996, the fee was Rs 500. But now, it has risen to Rs 25,000. “From the next elections post-1996, the nomination fee saw a sudden hike from Rs 500 to Rs 10,000. I doubt whether it was to discourage people like me from contesting,” he shared.
Though he tasted defeat in 1996, Karunakaran got elected to Lok Sabha from Mukundapuram and Thiruvananthapuram later.
A firebrand at his young age, Divakaran participated in several protests, including the Kallichithra Samaram in 1979. Divakaran and nine others, including advocates P Chandran and C V Subrahmanian, had led a hunger strike demanding fair compensation for tribal people of Kallichithra who were displaced from their settlements for the construction of the Chimmony dam. He had contested the panchayat elections in 1979. He filed a nomination as an independent candidate in Ward 7 of Varandarapilly panchayat but failed by a mere 15 votes. In 1980, Divakaran contested in the assembly elections from Mukundapuram.
“I filed my nomination this time as a protest against the BJP-led Union government. India has a secular face and it should remain the same. Any governance that poses a threat to the country’s secularism and the Constitution should be brought down,” he said. With all eyes focusing on Thrissur, especially after garnering national attention with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s double visit, Divakaran waits patiently to know whether Karunakaran’s son K Muraleedharan, the UDF candidate, would suffer the same fate as his father in 1996.