Vadakara Constituency: KK Shailaja Vs Shafi Parambil Makes The Contest Engrossing

The Vadakara constituency has been turned into a heated political fray, followed by the last-minute entry of Shafi Parambil, the sitting MLA of Palakkad, with a huge reception in Vadakara. With the arrival of Shafi Parambil, which had created a wave in the constituency with huge crowd was waiting to receive him, Kerala was seen glued into the constituency where CPM candidate KK Shailaja, the former health minister of the state, also in contest.

Reports indicate that Shafi’s vibrant campaign across the constituency has also moved the LDF camp. Even though CPM’s Shailaja started her election campaign very earlier, she didn’t reportedly expect this surprise candidacy from the Congress. While replacing sitting MP K Muraleedharan with Shafi Parambil, Congress leadership is taking into consideration his unbeatable performance in the last Assembly election in Palakkad against the BJP’s high-profile candidate E Sreedharan, the ‘Metroman’, where the saffron party expected a sure-shot win. Thus, Congress has pinned its hopes on its youth leader to retain the constituency.

Notably, both the CPM and the Congress have fielded the sitting MLAs, but BJP candidate Praful Krishnan is a new face in the poll fray. As campaigning shows, the Congress and the CPM are the main contenders for the seat.

The Vadakara constituency was once a citadel of the CPM. It started showing allegiance to Congress in 2009, when Mullappally Ramachandran won the seat in the Lok Sabha polls. The constituency has witnessed many political violences, including the murder of the Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) founder, TP Chandrasekharan, which once again emerged as a key campaign topic in the Vadakara elections. Even though the recent High Court verdict in the TP Chandrasekharan murder case came as assurance for the Congress campaign, by fielding their popular face, KK Shailaja, the CPM extends confidence that the verdict will not pose any effect on the election as a decade has passed since the incident.

At present, a severe verbal tussle is going on in social media between the UDF and the LDF, followed by the LDF candidate KK Shailaja’s allegation against Congress that some members of Congress bullied her by creating obscene videos of her on cyberspace under the leadership of the UDF candidate. However, Shafi Parambil denied his involvement in the matter. Later on, many Congress leaders, especially the opposition leader, VD Satheesan, responded to it as a false claim and merely a gimmick of the CPM to emotionally influence the voters just ahead of the election.

IUML, the second-largest coalition partner in the UDF, plays an indispensable part in the consistency. Therefore, major leaders of IUML, including national secretary PK Kunhalikutty, have reached the constituency, showing support for Shafi Parambil. Muslim votes are very crucial in the Vadakara constituency, which is around 31.2% of the total population, while Hindu votes are approximately 66.6%.

(This story is part of a Timeline. internship project.)