On the face of it, the UDF camp looks set to romp home, brushing off the challenge posed by CPI’s Eldo Abraham, maintaining that he’s just too young to take on a veteran, sitting MLA Joseph Vazhakkan, who’s seeking another term from the segment.
That, however, is counted advantageous by the Left Front, as it reaches out to young voters across political affiliations. Mr. Abraham’s brand of eco-friendly development that he steered as standing committee chairman of the Payipra grama panchayat, it hopes, will work in his favour.
A traditional bastion of the Kerala Congress and Congress, Muvattupuzha has favoured the CPI as well, on occasions. But behind the façade of confidence, what actually gives the UDF the jitters is the disenchantment among rubber growers, fuelled by the government’s perceived apathy towards falling prices of the crop, and among those in the agro industries. The decline of the once-profit making Nadukkara Agro Processing Company, which makes the Jive brand of fruit juice, into an ailing firm after its governance was transferred from a farmers’ collective to the Vegetable and Fruit Promotion Council Kerala (VFPCK) has antagonised pineapple farmers in Vazhakulam, Avoli, Kalloorkad and Manjalloor panchayats.
No cakewalk
So, it is far from a cakewalk that it is projected to be. Mr. Abraham, from the substantial Jacobite community in the constituency, also enjoys the goodwill of Hindus across castes. That the BJP, despite being a growing entity in the region, has fielded its former district president P.J. Thomas in the segment has inadvertently helped the two major fronts to gain Hindu votes, political observers reckon.
Mr. Abraham’s popularity in Payipra, which has a fair share of voters, and the unprecedented unity between the CPI(M) and the CPI in the constituency, might see him through.
Mr. Vazhakkan’s bid for a second term is pushed by highlighting his efforts towards constructing a ring road in the municipal area besides working for the Triveni development plan, which also includes a walkway and a hanging bridge; the KSRTC bus stand; and the district hospital development. The Left camp seeks to pick holes in the argument by waving records which suggest that a few of these projects, such as the KSRTC stand and the court complex, were initiated during the term of Babu Paul (CPI) as MLA.
For a district
Mr. Vazhakkan’s main poll plank is the promise of converting Muvattupuzha into a district, but the Left argues that he did precious little to do anything for it on the floor of the Assembly.
Both fronts promise to resolve issues like drinking water scarcity; frequent, unmanageable traffic hold-ups caused by lack of adequate road infrastructure in the town that’s the gateway to the high ranges of Idukki; and the drastic shrinking of large swathes of paddy and wet lands. However, the Left is drawing strength from the strides it made in the local body polls.
