Lok Sabha Polls 2024 | No end to plights of Kasargod's endosulfan victims

Another election has come and all candidates have yet again started making major promises for the upliftment of the northern district of Kasargod in Kerala, especially with regard to medical facilities, even as similar offers made during the previous elections are still remaining as distant dreams.

None of the candidates turn up at the 85 day long indefinite stir by families of endosulfan victims. None were ready to attend a request of a forum working for Kasargod's development to turn up for a discussion on the district's long pending needs.

While Congress's Rajmohan Unnithan is trying to retain the seat, CPM has fielded senior leader M V Balakrishnan Master to wrest the seat that it lost after three decades in 2019.

BJP hopes that their candidate Mahila Morcha leader and Manjeshwar block panchayat member M L Ashwini, who was born and brought up in Bengaluru, could make some influence among the voters with her linguistic skills in Kasargod, which is known as land of seven languages. The district that shares borders with Karnataka has a considerable Kannadiga population.

"I could speak in various languages like Kannada, Malayalam and Tulu that are commonly used in Kasargod and I hope that will be an added advantage for getting closer to the voters," Ashwini told DH.

BJP candidate M L Ashwini seeking votes.

She is blaming the CPM and the Congress for not addressing Kasargod's backwardness and at the same time emphasising Prime Minister Narendra Modi's development agenda.

Setting up an unit of AIIMS is a major demand of Kasargod as people are now forced to depend on neighbouring districts, especially Mangalore, for medical needs. A medical hospital in the district is only in the nascent stages over the last many years and a hospital set up by TATA during Covid-19 spike has now become defunct.

A K Prakash of Movement for Better Kasargod, a forum working for Kasargod's development, said that though the forum invited all the three candidates for open discussions of the development needs of the district as well as the initiatives made so far, none turned up for discussion.

An indefinite stir by endosulfan victims and their families has been going on at Kasargod over the last 85 days against the Kerala government's decision not to consider those born in endosulfan affected areas after October 2011 as endosulfan victims. They lament that 1,031 persons with mental and physical deformities, who were screened at a medical camp held in 2017, were not yet considered as endosulfan victims.

"None of the candidates visited us. May be because they don't have a convincing reply to our woes," said endosulfan victims' action council leader Ambalathara Kunhikrishnan.

Though social activist Daya Bai earlier announced that she will contest from Kasargod as a mark of protest, she later withdrew from the plans owing to personal difficulties.

The constituency that comprises of parts of nearby Kannur district has a total voters of 14,52,230, including 7,50,741 female, 7,01,475 males and 14 transgenders.