Thiruvananthapuram: The ruling Left Democratic Front on Thursday announced five newcomers for the Assembly bypolls, to be held on October 21.
The candidates are: V K Prashant (Vattiyoorkavu), K U Janeesh Kumar (Konni), Manu C Pulickal (Aroor), Manu Roy (Ernakulam) and Shankar Rai (Manjeshwaram).
V K Prasanth is the mayor of Thiruvananthapuram. K U Janeesh Kumar is the state vice-president of the Democratic Youth Federation of India, the youth wing of the CPM. Manu C Pulickal is a member of CPM's Alappuzha district secretariat. In Ernakulam, the LDF will back independent candidate Manu Roy, who is an advocate at the Kerala High Court. He is the son of senior journalist K M Roy.
CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan announced the candidates at a press meet here.
The only surprise in the list was M Shankar Rai in Manjeshwaram. C H Kunhambu, the giant slayer who trounced Cherkkulam Abdulla in 2006, was seen as a front-runner till the other day. But the party appears to have decided to capitalise on Rai's Tulu background this time. Shankar Rai was the editor of CPM's Tulu mouthpiece, Tulunadu Times before its closure in 2017. The constituency has a large number of Tulu-speaking voters.
“Rai belongs to a linguistic minority,” Balakrishnan said at the press conference, confirming that this had tipped the scales in his favour.
Young faces
Top CPM sources told Onmanorama that it was not without reason that the CPM has pushed young and fresh faces into the by-election ring. “First of all, it is party policy to push fresh faces to prominent positions in the party. But of equal importance was the party's need to snuff out any thoughts of desertion,” a CPM leader said.
The leader said that workers at all levels of the hierarchy in many mainstream and regional parties are jumping ship to join the BJP, frustrated at the lack of opportunities. “The CPM is sworn to insulate our workers from the lure of the BJP bait. We know the BJP is trying hard in Kerala. We want to demonstrate that the CPM, unlike in the Congress, is a place where merit counts. We want the younger leaders to be hopeful about the party,” the leader said.
This is perhaps why the DYFI state vice president Janeesh Kumar was picked even though the Pathanamthitta district committee president K P Udayabhanu had strong reservations about his winnability.
At least on the fact of it, it also looks like the CPM had steered clear of caste considerations. In Aroor, the district committee had a preference for former district secretary C B Chandrababu considering that he was from the dominant Ezhava community. But the party opted for Manu C Pulikkan. The choice of V K Prashanth is also bold considering that Vattiyoorkavu is an upper caste, essentially Nair, borough where the NSS thinking could be decisive.
Kowever, in Konni and Ernakulam, the party has gone by conventions by picking an Ezhava and Latin Catholic respectively.
