: The costal ward of Mukhadar under the City Corporation is known for its passion for football. There are many who believe that the sitting councillor, Brazilia Shamsuddheen, won from the ward last time because of her name, which clearly had to do with the celebrated foot-balling nation.
The councillor was named so, it is said, by one of her uncles, who was a great fan of Brazil.
This time when the local body goes to polls in November, ward number 57 (Mukhadar) still has football as one of its major talking-points. The prominent cultural forum Nainamvalappu Football Fans Association (NFFA), with a decisive vote share in the ward, has already come out in the open and put a condition for their valuable votes — Materialise the long promised mini-stadium at Nainamvalappu.
According to N.V. Subair, a resident and president of the NFFA, the association has been raising this demand for a long time now. Even the Minister from the constituency, M.K. Muneer, according to him, had made an announcement during the inaugural ceremony of the Kothy Bridge Approach Road at Nainamvalappu a few months ago that a mini-stadium would be constructed at the ward without delay. “But the stadium still remains on paper and this will not be acceptable any longer,” says Mr. Subair.
The association, with its control over a large section of the nearly 8,000 electorate, has already approached both the prominent fronts in the fray with their demand. “We will see to it that our votes are polled in favour of the candidate who would get us the mini-stadium,” says Mujeeb Rahman, secretary of the association.
The collective, which had been reportedly approached by representatives of both the major fronts with a request to field its representative, however, has kept away from electoral politics.
“As a cultural forum, we definitely are interested in the overall development of the ward. But as a predominantly soccer fans’ forum we also have our priorities set right,” said Mr. Rahman.
