With the Assembly elections around the corner, both the CPI(M) and the Congress are planning to field their own nominees in seats contested by their partners in Kozhikode district last time.
Local leaders of the two mainline parties have apprised their State forums that their nominees should make it to the Legislature in the context of a political churning taking place in the State. Of the 13 Assembly segments, the CPI(M) and the Congress have been generously offering winnable seats to their constituents in keeping with the coalition policy.
The district committee of the CPI(M) is determined to take over the Elathur and Vadakara segments, which the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Janata Dal (Secular) had successfully contested in the last two polls. One of the reasons cited is that the party wanted to accommodate its own leaders rather than letting constituents win from its strongholds.
NCP leader and Minister for Transport A.K. Saseendran had contested from Elathur twice and earlier from Balussery. In the case of Vadakara, the CPI(M) had never contested from the segment in recent memory. Since 2001, the Janata Dal (S) has been successfully contesting with the solid backing of the CPI(M), party sources said.
Now, the Loktantrik Janata Dal (LJD), which was inducted into the Left Democratic Front (LDF), is also demanding the Vadakara seat.
The case of the Congress is pathetic in that it has had no legislator from Kozhikode district for the last three terms. But with the exit of the LJD and a major chunk of the Kerala Congress (M) led by Jose K. Mani, party leaders believe that seat-sharing will be easy. It hopes to contest the Elathur seat as well as the Perambra and Thiruvambady segments, which were earlier contested by the KC(M) and the Union Muslim League (IUML) respectively.
However, it will have to confront its defiant partner, the IUML, which has been demanding additional seats in the coming polls. With its aggressive campaigning at the grassroots level, the IUML has been able to dominate the electoral apparatus of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kozhikode. Incidentally, the party has two legislators from the district now.
