Alangulam, the ‘vegetable basket’ of the district that witnessed ‘close fights’ in the past three Assembly elections is witnessing a keen electoral battle this time also. And this close tussle predicts that victory margin could be low as in the past three polls.
Housing several thousand beedi rollers, the Alangulam constituency has a large number of Nadar, Yadhava, Thevar and Dalit voters. While the educated younger generation moves out of native places to major cities in search of lucrative job opportunities or to establish own business ventures, their parents are still testing their fortunes in farming, especially vegetable cultivation, with the available water sources, mostly wells.
Though some of the villages under this segment, all major producers of vegetables, have benefited from the micro irrigation schemes of the State and the Central governments, there is no mechanism to ensure better price for the produce. With no cold storage facility at Alangulam, the vegetable producers, who are left to the mercy of traders from Kerala, have to sell their produce to them at the prevailing rate.
Moreover, no step has been taken to make value-added products from vegetables cultivated on a large scale in villages around Alangulam. After Kerala started imposing several restrictions on vegetables being transported from Alangulam and Paavoorchathram areas, citing the ‘residual pesticide effect,’ vegetable growers of this region are ready to follow organic farming practices. Even though a good number of farmers is ready to switch over to organic farming, especially in vegetable cultivation, no special thrust has been given in this direction. Supply of regular, drinking water to residents is still a nagging problem. Desilting of irrigation channels and removal of encroachments from channels to ensure free flow of water into major irrigation tanks can alleviate this problem to some extent as the groundwater table would get recharged.
AIADMK candidate Hephzi Karthikeyan, chairperson of Alangualm town panchayat, has earned the goodwill of voters, who say that her ‘helping tendency’ would be an advantage. At the same time, sitting MLA P.G. Rajendran’s “omissions and failure as MLA” work against Ms. Hephzi and in favour of DMK candidate Poongothai Aladi Aruna, who was elected to the Assembly from here in 2006 after her father and former Minister Aladi Aruna was murdered.
The Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam – People’s Welfare Front has fielded actor Rajendranath of Mukkoodal and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Anburaj is also in the fray. Besides unveiling a range of promises for uplifting the living conditions of beedi rollers and farmers, the candidates also make earnest attempts to lure the first-time voters with “clean and transparent” administration” and creation of employment opportunities in and around Alangulam itself.
