The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) has welcomed the Election Commission’s announcement of byelection in the Malappuram Lok Sabha constituency on April 12. The announcement was made on Thursday.
The byelection has been necessitated following the death of IUML president E. Ahamed, MP, on February 1.
Ahamed had secured a mammoth victory margin of 1,94,739 votes over his CPI(M) rival in Malappuram in 2014. This was the biggest margin of an MP in that election in Kerala.
Ready for poll: Majeed
IUML State general secretary K.P.A. Majeed said his party was ready to face the election. “For us, it will be an election to enhance the margin of victory,” he told The Hindu .
According to Mr. Majeed, the election will politically be a tool to emphatically register the IUML stand on the fascist agenda being propagated by the Narendra Modi government at the Centre and the authoritarian style of functioning of the LDF government in the State headed by Pinarayi Vijayan.
Party’s objectives
“We will take on both the BJP and the CPI(M) in the election. The time is ripe for the United Democratic Front (UDF) to show the people’s ire over the anti-minority stand being followed by the State and Union governments,” he said.
The IUML has finished several rounds of pre-election meetings. The party does not have to dilly-dally over the choice of candidate for Malappuram, especially in the light of the willingness reportedly expressed by party national general secretary P.K. Kunhalikutty to follow in the footsteps of Ahamed.
The Left Democratic Front (LDF) is yet to open a serious discussion to choose the candidate. In 2014, the CPI(M) had drawn criticism over its choice of candidate against Ahamed. Poll watchers had evaluated that it was the LDF’s fielding of P.K. Sainaba, a progressive Muslim woman, that gave Ahamed the 1.94 lakh lead in Malappuram in 2014.
