Her curious eyes and shy smile fail to hide the anxiety within. Leaning against the wall, she has a desolate expression writ large across her face.
Hardly a year ago, Rahana KK lost her father when he went to collect firewood. Raghu was trampled by an elephant that emerged from the thick vegetation in their settlement. She had lost her mother long back. The 15-year-old seems reluctant to talk about the loss, a memory etched deep in her mind.
She is among the thousands driven to the edge in the tribal settlement next to the Aralam Wildlife Sanctuary. The settlement has around 12 tribes including Paniyar, Karimpala, Kurichyar, Kattunaikar, Kani and Mavilans.
To enter Aralam is to step into a different world, where lives are lost on a regular basis, tribals live in penury and workers’ agitations remain a routine affair. Sixteen persons have died in wild animal attacks here since 2018. While a lucky few get compensation, the majority still await their dues.
“It’s a painful saga for the tribals,” says Iritty block panchayat president K Velayudhan, who served as the Aralam panchayat president back in 2003.
“Two decades ago, when AK Antony was the Chief Minister, about 7,500 acres were bought for Rs 42 crore. While 4,000 acres were earmarked for the farm, 3,500 acres were distributed among 3,335 tribal families. Now, only 1,717 families remain, the others having moved out seeking better living conditions,” he adds.
Aralam falls under Peravoor, one of the seven assembly segments in the Kannur Lok Sabha constituency. LDF holds five of the seats while the other two are with the UDF. But things tend to take a different turn in the parliamentary polls.
While Dharmadam and Mattannur remain CPM strongholds, Irikkoor and Peravoor favour the Congress. ln 2019, UDF's candidate for Lok Sabha K Sudhakaran got 725 votes from Taliparamba assembly constituency, where the Left usually enjoys a political edge.
Structurally, Kannur offers a rare combination of assembly segments, as some of the heavyweights in state politics — including Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, CPM state secretary M V Govindan, minister Kadanappally Ramachandran and popular CPM leader KK Shailaja — come from the constituency. No wonder, voters here seem to eat, drink and breathe politics.
While sitting MP and Congress state chief K Sudhakaran is seeking a second term, the CPM has fielded its district chief MV Jayarajan. The saffron party has chosen C Reghunath, who had contested as a UDF candidate against Pinarayi in the 2021 assembly election and later defected to the BJP.
While the fronts have seemingly chosen their available ‘best’, certain sections within all three secretly admit that better candidate-selection would have made things far easier. With Shailaja contesting from neighbouring Vadakara, issues there will have resonance in Kannur too.
The real feel of the battle comes through in Taliparamba as both fronts work overtime to consolidate/regain majority. Electoral tension is palpable.
A few posters and banners of the Congress party were destroyed recently, setting off a tirade of allegations and counter-allegations. The town has a substantial Muslim population that sides with the UDF, while the CPM enjoys solid support in other pockets. The party has even won unopposed in such areas, in the local body polls.
The Trichambaram temple festival has just ended. Scrap dealers Balakrishnan, 55, of Pallikkara and Jayaram, 60, of Kumbala are busy chatting before their customary afternoon nap under a huge banyan tree.
“Business is dull nowadays. A kilogram of scrap fetches a meagre Rs 13, now that migrants too have entered the field,” quips Balakrishnan.
At the UDF campaign committee office, KPCC member Mohammed Blathur is busy strategising. He talks about Andoor municipality, where the CPM has a firm support base.
“Keeping bogus voters away will be the biggest task. Complaints have been filed with the ECI. There are a few CPM-controlled party villages where the Congress is a bit weak. We hope to win a good vote-share there,” says a confident Mohammed, constantly on the phone coordinating with Non-Resident Keralites who have come for campaigning.
The LDF campaign focuses on the lack of performance by the incumbent.
“Other than setting up a high-mast lamp, the MP hasn’t done anything for Kannur, be it concerning national highway development, Koyyam road issue, Bakkalam underpass or other infrastructure projects. Jayarajettan, however, enjoys widespread acceptance among the common people,” says party area secretary Santhosh Kanod.
The two fronts also seem to be aware of their ‘weak’ areas. Certain remarks by Sudhakaran about shifting to the BJP are being widely used against him. There is also a lack of enthusiasm among the Muslim League cadre, evident from their glaring absence at campaign meets.
Pass through Kannur and not meet Parassinikkadavu Muthappan? A rare conglomeration of faith and revolution, Muthappan, curiously, seems to attract more communists than believers. At Mattannur, yet another land acquisition is in progress for the expansion of Kannur airport, with five houses on demolition queue in this phase at Vazhamthode.
Getting down to the seashore, the night seems still young at the Payyambalam beach.
Both local residents and tourists flock to the vibrant destination amid an array of memorials, monuments and plaques, those of BJP’s KG Marar, CPM’s EK Nayanar and Congress young turk Satheesan Pacheni among them. One name however triggers a lingering emotion — Kannur’s very own Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.
