With barely two days left for the counting of votes of the Assembly polls, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) are optimistic about their performances in 13 Assembly constituencies in Kozhikode district.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] leaders say that the Left front will retain all its sitting seats as well as wrest the Kuttiyadi and Kozhikode South Assembly segments. The achievements of the LDF government and the performance of its legislators in the past five years were in the minds of the electorate, P. Mohanan, CPI(M) district secretary, says.
CPI(M) functionaries were also confident about their electioneering work despite some political unrest in the local cadre over allotting the Kuttiyadi seat to the Kerala Congress (M) initially. The party finally fielded former Kozhikode district panchayat president K.P. Kunhammed Kutty to fight the polls in Kuttiyadi. In the 2016 polls, Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) nominee Parakkal Abdulla had won the seat by a margin of 1,157 votes.
The Indian National League (INL) has fielded Ahamed Devarkovil to capture the Kozhikode South segment. Here, the IUML has fielded Noorbina Rasheed, the party’s first female candidate to contest the Assembly polls in 25 years.
At the same time, IUML sitting legislator and popular leader M.K. Muneer was shifted to recapture the Koduvally seat it lost to the Left Independent candidate Karat Razak in the 2016 elections.
‘No hope’
Meantime, UDF leaders exude confidence over upsetting the apple cart of the CPI(M) in many constituencies. The coalition won just two seats last time. The only seat they have no hope is the Elathur segment which was allotted to Sulfikkar Mayuri of the Nationalist Congress Kerala (NCK) under the seat-sharing pact.
They say that some deft moves in the selection of candidates, although at the last moment, will help the coalition spring surprises in Kunnamangalam, Nadapuram and Koyilandy, and even in Kozhikode North.
The decision of the IUML to field DCC secretary Dinesh Perumanna as an Independent candidate to take on LDF-backed sitting legislator P.T. Rahim was a smart move, M.K. Raghavan, MP, says.
The Congress-IUML poll managers are also confident of K.K. Rema, wife of slain RMP founder T.P. Chandrasekharan, emerging victorious in the Vadakara segment.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is pinning hopes on its State general secretary M.T. Ramesh, who contested from Kozhikode North.
