MALAPPURAM: Nilambur created history by sending a member to the legislative assembly for the shortest period, years ago. It was in 1980 that Nilambur sent a member to the Assembly for just 10 days.
It is not because the term of the House had expired, but because the representative resigned from the post to make way for another candidate. C Haridas was the member who gave away his position within weeks.
There is a story of sacrifice behind that resignation.
Haridas and his team were in the Left Front under the leadership of AK Antony after the Congress split. That split was due to the difference of opinion that cropped up following the declaration of Emergency in the country. In the 1980 elections, C Haridas was given the Nilambur seat. His opponent was TK Hamsa, who later joined the CPM.
The elections were held on the 3rd and 6th of January, and the results were announced on January 22. LDF won 93 seats with CPM winning 35 and Congress (U) winning 21 seats, including the Nilambur seat.
Haridas, who contested under the Charkha (Spinning Wheel) symbol, won by 6,423 votes. He was chosen by his party to contest in Aryadan Muhammed’s constituency, after Aryadan contested the Lok Sabha from Ponnani that year.
Aryadan was defeated in the Ponnani Lok Sabha constituency by GM Banathwala. The Left Front won and entered the assembly. Aryadan, who lost the Parliament election, was included in the cabinet and made the Minister of Labour and Forests.
Haridas came forward and offered his resignation to allow Aryadan, who was not a member of the Legislative Assembly, to become an MLA within six months. “It was not a sacrifice. I resigned because Aryadan was elected from there in 1977. So it was his seat, and we were sure that Aryadan would win from there. I didn’t want any particular position to serve the people,” Haridas told TNIE.
Though he submitted his resignation on February 5, according to assembly records, the resignation was accepted only on February 25. The chief minister and the MLAs were sworn in on January 25, 1980.
Aryadan also joined the cabinet soon after. That resignation paved the way for the second by-election in the history of Nilambur. In the by-election, Aryadan defeated Mullappally Ramachandran, then a Youth Congress leader, by a record margin of 17,841 votes.
Haridas never contested the Legislative Assembly again, but became a Rajya Sabha member from 1980 to 1986, and later served as the chairperson of Ponnani Municipality from 2000 to 2005. Aryadan remained in Nilambur as MLA until the 2016 election.