Onmanorama's Know Your Candidate (KYC) captures the changing trends in a constituency, the pulse of of the voters from the ground and gauges candidates' chances.

N K Premachandran
On April 13 afternoon, with the mercury blazing beyond 37 degree Celsius, a small group of Muslim League workers was busy visiting houses lined on either side of a narrow concrete path near Eravipuram town in Kollam Lok Sabha constituency.

"We tell voters that there was nothing wrong in Premachandran accepting an invite from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to have lunch with him at the Parliament canteen. Our leader Sadiq Ali Thangal has told us that it would have been impolite to refuse," said Shabeer, one of the members of the League election squad. The team also shares with families the speeches Premachandran made in Parliament against the Citizenship Amendment Act. Shabeer's is one of the many League squads moving around Kollam constituency.

This squad work is part of inspired campaign thinking. The UDF has delegated to the Muslim League the responsibility of removing any misgivings in the Muslim community about Premachandran's lunch with the PM. In a major departure from practice, it was League president Panakkad Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal who inaugurated UDF's Kollam Parliament Mandalam convention. Usually, it was done by a senior Congress leader.

Though it was Premachandran who had lunch with Modi, the burp of satisfaction was heard from the LDF side. It sensed the political advantage of utilising this noon-meal event to stir up in secular minds their worst fear about Premachandran -- a fence-sitting Sangh sympathiser who would roll over to the BJP side any moment. The League squad is now working to neutralise such barbs.

Besides attempts to politically discredit him, the LDF has also struck Premachandran in an area he is considered strong -- performance.

He was blamed for the non-realisation of the Immigration Check Post at Kollam port and the non-revival of Parvathy Mills. In turn, armed by official papers, Premachandran showed why the state and centre should take the blame. In the second half of the campaign, the LDF was silent on both these charges.

M Mukesh
Going by the crowds that throng election meetings, actor and the sitting MLA from Kollam is clearly the most popular candidate for the Lok Sabha polls in the constituency. There is a massive crowd wherever the actor goes. College students jostle for a selfie, women approach him like he is their brother, children look at him like a friend. He seems to make everyone happy.

But it is not clear whether such warmth would translate into votes. Onmanorama had picked three people each from crowds at Chadayamangalam, Kundra and Punalur and asked whether they would vote for Mukesh. Two from Punalur and one from Chadayamangalam said they would and the other six said no. "I like the way he acts and so I wanted to see him in real. But Premachandran should win the election," 67-year-old Gomathy in Kundra said.

It is the incumbent's performer tag that troubles Mukesh the most. He is unsure whether to compliment or trivialise, and ends up doing both. This is from his speech at Kannanallur near Kundra: "Many people tell me that my rival had asked many questions in Parliament. It is as if nobody else can ask questions! They say he has produced many papers. Let him. I appreciate it. He is after all our MP. It is a matter of honour for us that he is doing all this."

Worse still, he tries to level up not by speaking of his seven years as MLA but by flaunting his screen skills. When told of the widespread notion that his rival is a great performer, he said: "He's my friend. Let him perform. I respect performers. But then, am I too not a performer? Would I have survived the past 41 years had I not performed well?"

But he is in deeper trouble if there is some truth in the Facebook comment that was posted when Mukesh shared a picture of him holding six-year-old Abigail Sara who was kidnapped and found 24 hours later last November. "Along with the child, we found our MLA, too," said the comment.

G Krishnakumar
The BJP enters the fray in Kollam the way India enters the World Cup football qualifiers: With the hope of making it big some day.

At the moment, even the BJP knows it does not have the political wherewithal to launch a decisive challenge against the two major fronts in a constituency with a proud history of working class struggles. A sign of this was the unhurried manner in which actor G Krishnakumar was named as the candidate. The BJP’s first list of 12 candidates came out on March 2 but it was only on March 24 that Krishnakumar's name was announced.

Still, it looks like the BJP has chosen wisely. Krishnakumar is the kind of candidate who can augment the BJP vote share by at least 5 per cent; in 2019, it was 10.67%. The actor seems to possess this rare ability to convert a crisis into a 'mass' moment for him.

Take for instance his visit to Government ITI Chandanathope, Kollam, on March 27. The SFI members refused entry to 'Narendra Modi's candidate' and the campus soon exploded into an SFI-ABVP slugfest. The police had to intervene.

Krishnakumar's response seems to have won hearts. "These children should know that before coming here all three of us (Premachandran, Mukesh and himself) had a good time over breakfast. (He had taken part in Malayala Manorama's 'Poll Cafe' programme early that day). If we can do things in a friendly manner, what prompts these children to turn so aggressive? You gain nothing from violence. Those who point fingers at North India and scream fascism should know that they are the ones who are practising the real fascism."

Voters in various parts of the constituency referred to Krishnakumar’s words even without asking. Even an illiterate plantation worker in Aryankavu, over 100km away from Kollam town, told us that she was impressed by Krishnakumar's words. Nonetheless, she said her vote is for Premachandran.