Vattiyoorkavu, a Crucial Seat in Kerala Bypolls

As the campaigns for bypolls in five Assembly constituencies across Kerala continues, both Left Democratic Front (LDF) and United Democratic Front (UDF) are intensifying their campaign to bag as many seats possible. The bypolls for five Assembly constituencies- Vattiyoorkkavu in Thiruvananthapuram, Konni in Pathanamthitta, Aroor in Alappuzha, Ernakulam and Manjeswaram in Kasargod will be held on October 21.

Among these five constituencies, the Vattiyoorkavu seat is considered significant since the fight is expected to be tight as all three fronts—LDF, UDF and BJP-led NDA—have significant presence here. The intra party conflicts within both UDF and NDA camps make the competition more tough in the seat which has been vacant since May this year, as the sitting legislator K Muradheeran made his way to Parliament from Vadakara parliament constituency.

For UDF, Peethambara Kurup was the initial choice. Muradheeran had also been backing Kurup. But, the protests in local level over the candidature of Kurup forced the party to zero down their choice to K Mohan Kumar.

Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led LDF has placed VK Prasanth, sitting mayor of Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, as their candidate. Thirty-eight year old Prasanth is the youngest amongst all three main candidates, and has succeeded to win the people’s hearts across political borders through his able administration. Prasanth, who is also fondly known as ‘Mayor Bro’ was there in the forefront to collect and ensure relief materials for the flood-affected people during August 2018 and August 2019.

Also read: Kerala Bypolls: Conflicts in Congress Intensify After Pala Result, Fronts Declare Candidates

During the Kerala floods 2019, the efforts of Thiruvananthapuram Corporation under the leadership of Mayor Prasanth to distribute relief materials in the most affected northern districts of the state garnered praise and applauses. He had successfully headed the works and mobilised the youth to be a part of flood relief work. During Kerala Floods August 2018 also, he was there in the forefront of relief operations. He even joined with the team of Democratic Youth Federation of India who had gone to the flood hit areas for the post-flood works including cleaning of houses and other public buildings which had been submerged in the flood water, distributed relief kits, etc.

While from the NDA-camp, S Suresh had been declared as the candidate against the wishes of BJP cadres and the party’s state leadership. The state leadership had been advocating for Kummanam Rajasekharan, who had quit from the position of Mizoram Governor to re-enter Kerala politics. However, the central leadership of BJP announced the name of Suresh, district president of BJP, through a surprise move. As per reports, V Muraleedharan, present union minister and former state president of BJP, was behind this decision. The move clearly reveals the conflicts between Muradheeran camp and Kummanam camp.

Through the candidature of Kumar and Suresh, both of whom are from the upper caste Nair community, UDF and BJP are targetting the Nair vote bank. On the other hand, through Prasanth’s candidature, who is from the Ezhava (Other Backward Castes) community, LDF has presented a strong opposition to the caste-based vote bank politics.

Coming to the election campaigns, the LDF camp had started their campaigns much earlier than the UDF and NDA. The Pala by-election victory had also boosted the confidence of LDF camp. However, the history of the Assembly seat presents a mixed picture.

Kumar of Congress is not a new face, as he had represented Thiruvanthapuram North Assembly in 2001. Later at the time of reorganisation of Assembly segments, Thiruvanthapuram North had been named as Vattiyoorkavu.

Also read: Ruling LDF Wins Pala Bypoll in Kerala for First Time in 5 Decades

Back then, from Thiruvananthapuram North segment, M Vijayakumar of CPI(M) had represented the Assembly for three consecutive terms – in 1987, Vijayakumar grabbed the seat from Congress and in 1991 and 1996, too, he repeated the victory. Then in 2001, UDF won the seat by fielding Mohan Kumar, who is representing UDF this time too. Again in 2006 Assembly elections, Vijayakumar had emerged victorious. After that, Vattiyoorkavu Assembly seat was formed and since then, only UDF has won from the seat. In 2011 and 2016, K Muraleedharan had represented the Assembly constituency.

The legislative Assembly segment-wise distribution of votes in Parliament election 2019 also shows that UDF had a majority here. The Vattiyoorkavu Assembly seat comes under the Thiruvananthapuram Parliament segment. In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Shashi Tharoor of UDF got 39.46% of the total votes polled. Kummanam Rajasekharan of BJP was in the second position with 37.37% vote and C Divakaran of Communist Party of India (CPI) who represented LDF got 29.67% votes.

However, the political ground has changed since the Parliament elections. The popularity of the LDF candidate and conflicts within other fronts make the bypoll unpredictable.