KOCHI : While opponents accuse Congress leader and Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi of being a tourist in his own constituency, history show that ‘outsiders’ have featured in elections in Kerala. Far from being a trend, both UDF and CPM-led LDF have experimented with candidates from outside the state.
Leaders like Muhammad Ismail, from Tamil Nadu, G M Banatwala, from Maharashtra, and Ebrahim Sulaiman Sait, from Karnataka, have served as IUML MPs from Kerala multiple times. Besides, LDF fielded C M Ibrahim, a former Union minister and Janata Dal leader from Karnataka, in Kozhikode in the 1996 election. However, he lost to Congress’ K Muraleedharan by 38,703 votes. Veteran journalist B G Verghese, who had ancestral roots in Kerala, also contested as a Janata Party-backed independent candidate in Mavelikkara in 1977, the election after the Emergency.
While BJP is targeting Rahul by portraying him as an outsider in Wayanad, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the NDA candidate in Thiruvananthapuram, born to a Malayali couple in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, with ancestral ties to Thrissur, is facing the same accusation.
Muhammad Ismail, the former national president of the Muslim League, was the first outsider to win a seat here, says senior journalist Thomas Jacob. “Ismail Sahib, Sulaiman Sait and Banatwala won multiple times. B G Verghese, C M Ibrahim and Rajeev are Malayalis who cannot be termed as outsiders,” he added.
In 1994, while serving as its national president, Sait severed ties with the IUML and formed the Indian National League. Sait won from Kozhikode in 1967 and 1971, from Manjeri from 1977 t0 1989 and from Ponnani in 1991. He was also a Rajya Sabha member from the state from 1960-66.
A firebrand orator and intellectual, Banatwala, the former president of IUML, was a member of the Maharashtra legislative assembly in 1967. He later served seven terms in the Lok Sabha, from Ponnani in Kerala, between 1977–1989 and 1996–2004. He also served as the national president of the IUML from 1993 to 2008. He was a member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board. Interestingly, Banatwala never spoke Malayalam and addressed the people in English.
Verghese, a noted journalist based in Delhi, was from Tiruvalla, while Ibrahim, whose political activities are based in Karnataka, hails from Koothuparamba, Kannur. The LDF candidate in Wayanad, Annie Raja, who is based in New Delhi, hails from Iritty, Kannur.
The names of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, both from TN, kept doing the rounds as the BJP candidate from Thiruvananthapuram.