Having been the venue of people’s agitations over issues as diverse as the Kasturirangan committee report and the demand for higher bonus and wages by women plantation workers in recent times, Idukki could be in for a battle of unprecedented political dimensions in the local bodies’ election.
Quite unlike most other districts, Idukki has been seeing waves upon waves of agitations over the past several months. It began with the agitation over the designation of 119 villages as Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESAs) in the Kasturirangan committee report on the Western Ghats and moved on to the status of the Cardamom Hill Reserves (CHR) and the local population’s anxieties over the title deeds given to settlers.
The High Range Protection Council that was in the forefront of the agitations relating to the Kasturirangan committee recommendations and the title deeds issue, and the
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The UDF had almost swept the district in the 2010 local government elections. In the Idukki district panchayat, the UDF victory was total, winning all the 16 seats. It won some of the other local bodies by as much as three-fourth majority. However, with the emergence of the High Range Protection Council roughly a year ago, the UDF’s calculations have gone awry. The council was able to get its lawyer elected as a Member of Parliament in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls with the active support of the Left Democratic Front (LDF). Though the combine is not directly in the fray, its affiliates have fielded their candidates at local level.
As many as 100 candidates, jointly put up by the affiliate groups in close coordination with the LDF are in the fray. Among them are four candidates in the Idukki district panchayat divisions, which is bad news for the UDF.
The Left is playing its cards carefully and is moving in tandem with the combine as it does not have much to lose in the district.
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