With Sri Lankan links coming to the fore, electioneering in the Estate ward of Kulathupuzha panchayat in Kollam district may not appear to be one for a local bodies’ election in Kerala. That is because the medium of campaigning in this ward is Tamil and that tradition is linked to Sri Lanka.
Along with politics, a Sri Lankan connection is also vital for a candidate to win from the ward. The history of the ward shows that only a candidate with such a link has made it to the panchayat committee from the ward.
Fully recognising this aspect, all political parties take care to field only candidates with some Sri Lankan link from this ward. That is because the descendents of Sri Lankan Tamils of Indian origin decide who should represent the ward in the panchayat.
Out of the 1,620 voters from the ward this time, 1,250 voters are Sri Lankan Tamils of Indian origin. The ward is located inside the 2,000 hectare public sector Rehabilitation Plantations Limited (RPL). The company was set up in 1972 with the objective of rehabilitating Indian origin repatriates from Sri Lanka under the 1964 Shastri-Sirimavo Agreement.
As many as 675 such repatriate families from Sri Lanka were resettled in March 1983 and another 25 families in 1990. The company provides permanent employment to two eligible members of each resettled repatriate family and the total number of workers now employed by the company is more than 1,500. Posters, notices, graffiti, speeches, and other modes of election campaigning in this ward are mainly in Tamil. Since the last 15 years, only a CPI candidate has represented the ward in the panchayat.
This time the ward has been reserved for women and the LDF candidate is G. Sindhu of the CPI who is the descendent of a resettled expatriate. But the UDF is giving a tough fight for the LDF by fielding P. Vimala of the Congress who is a Malayali married to a Sri Lankan Tamil. While the LDF side is confident that the Sri Lankan background will ensure Ms. Sindhu’s victory, the UDF side feels that the voters will prefer the “manamagal” Vimala this time. The BJP too has a candidate in the fray.
