A flex board seeking votes for UDF candidate P.K. Kunhalikutty. Photo: OnmanoramaMalappuram: Just eight days ahead of a bypoll, the political heat is no match for the soaring mercury which hovers around 34 degree Celsius in the Malappuram Lok Sabha constituency.
The byelection to the Malappuram constituency was necessitated by the demise of Edappakath Ahamed, who suffered a cardiac arrest during the Lok Sabha session in February.
The constituency is a stronghold of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML). Ahamed's victory margin was 1.94 lakh.
Pitchforking Kunhalikutty
To keep its bastion intact, the IUML has fielded its master strategist and key leader in Kerala, P.K. Kunhalikutty.
Kunhalikutty was anointed national general secretary of the IUML in February.
This was a clear hint that the party leadership would have then taken a call to pitchfork him into the national limelight and occupy the space of Ahamed. Kunhalikutty is also an MLA from Vengara assembly constituency which falls in the Malappuram Lok Sabha seat.
There are seven assembly segments in Malappularam -- Kondotty, Mankada, Vallikunnu, Manjeri, Malappuram, Perinthalmanna, and Vengara. And all the constituencies elected an IUML legislator in the 2016 assembly polls resisting a Left Democratic Front wave that swept the state.
Only in the Perinthalmanna assembly segment did the LDF give the IUML a stiff contest. Perhaps, that is a pointer to the mood of the electorate just a year ago. There aren't many hints to look at a different perspective for a shift in the priorities of the voters, but no election is over till the counting ends.
The contest and its trajectory could offer any fresh perspective only to the 1,14,975 new voters.
A herculean task for LDF
The ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF), however, is a workhorse vis-a-vis elections. It would leave nothing to chance in any election, even if the chances of victory are remote. The Malappuram bypoll is no exception. It has fielded a young leader M.B. Faisal to take on Kunhalikutty. LDF poll managers swear that the contest in the Lok Sabha constituency is no cakewalk.
Theatrics apart, the ruling front would be glad even if the massive margin of Ahamed is brought down by a notch.
It is with that intention that they have even openly dared to declare it as a referendum on the LDF government in the state, despite clearly knowing the magnitude of the task.
On the contrary, any fall in its vote share and a rise in the saffron tally would be a huge setback for the Pinarayi-led LDF government.
The BJP's plot
The BJP never foresees a victory in the Malappuram Lok Sabha constituency, but it needs to make a statement.
The BJP has all along been harping that the party managed to win in a major chunk of seats with a Muslim majority in Uttar Pradesh.
It projects this as a sign that Muslim community is not a vote bank anymore and a majority of voters are against triple talaq and for a Uniform Civil Code.
The BJP also eyes a chunk of the new additions to the voters' list after the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. It seeks to prove a point that an ambitious young India is in sync with prime minister Modi's grand vision of catapulting the nation to a powerhouse status. The BJP would be more than elated if it succeeds in hitting its ambitious target of a lakh votes.
The missing contestants
Ironically, two key players who could have managed to tweak the victory margin is not in the fray. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the SDPI had managed to garner 47,853 votes. The SDPI is the political incarnation of the Popular Front of India. The Welfare Party, the political face of the radical Jamaat-e-Islami, got 29,216 votes. Put together, that is a significant chunk of votes.
There are charges and counter-charges doing the rounds about the mysterious absence of these outfits but only after counting can we know into which camp have these blocks strayed.
Reading between the lines
There seems to be no indication of any significant change in the mood of the electorate. There hasn't been any significant reasons that warrants a radical shift in the mood of the electorate from the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The BJP is ambitious in its efforts, but the party has put its foot in the mouth through a dicey statement on beef by its candidate. The ruling Left Democratic Front has dared to call it a referendum on its government, but a chance meeting between Kunhalikutty and chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan at the residence of an industrialist has set tongues wagging about a 'scapegoat candidate' that emerged out of it.
