Thrissur: Though curtains are down for the popular Thrissur Pooram festival, the air continues to be thick with the competitive spirit at Kerala's cultural capital Thrissur. Thanks to the triangular fight for the Lok Sabha seat by three three equally prominent candidates.
Actor-turned politician Suresh Gopi is in the fray with high hopes of opening account to the Lok Sabha for the BJP from Kerala, while CPI's popular face of the district former minister V S Sunil Kumar is on a mission to pull back the seat the party lost in 2019.
The Congress indeed made a masterstroke by fielding senior leader K Muraleedharan, who is the son of popular Congress leader and former Chief Minister K Karunakaran, to resist BJP's attempts to tap Congress votes by giving a red carpet welcome to Karunakaran's daughter Padmaja Venugopla to the saffron party.
The considerable turnouts at the campaign meetings of all the three candidates indeed reflect the tough electoral battle in the central Kerala district.
As Suresh Gopi passed through the narrow roads of Athoor region of Thrissur, people in large numbers, especially women and children, could be seen eagerly awaiting despite their busy morning routines. Though Gopi limited his address to a request for votes, BJP camps were highlighting his humanitarian activities.
Gopi, who fared well at Thrissur in the last Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, has been engaged in development and welfare activities in the constituency. His gestures like offering a golden crown to a church were considered as bid to woo the considerable Christian votes, though the rival camps countered it by questioning the gold content in the crown.
Gopi, who was also a Rajya Sabha MP, has strong backing of the BJP national leadership with Prime Minister Narendra Modi even attending his daughter's marriage recently. BJP also highlights the cooperative bank scams in which left-front leaders are involved.
It was by around 11 am that the Congress candidate reached the Ollur church junction. Local people and shopkeepers could be seen eagerly listening to him as he stressed the need for resisting BJP's "attempts to sabotage the country's secularism." Muraleedharan also highlights the Manipur violence.
Muraleedhran, who is a sitting MP of Vadakara in north Kerala, had even commenced ground works for retaining the seat when the Congress's strategic move to field him at Thrissur by replacing sitting MP T N Prathapan came. The BJP even seems to have felt the heat of Congress's counter move as Padmaja could not be prominently seen in the campaign meetings of BJP in Thrissur.
Even as the CPI is having the image of a weak party struggling for existence, at Thrissur the picture is different. Despite the scorching sun, many supporters, including children to aged women, could be seen waiting at Mannuthy - Ayyankunnu regions to receive Sunil Kumar who has a clean image.
"You can see from the people's enthusiasm that we will make it to the Lok Sabha," a much confident Sunil Kumar told DH. He also focuses his campaign on the need for ousting the BJP from power.
However, there are concerns that anti-incumbency against the left-front government in Kerala and certain hiccups in the conduct of Thrissur Pooram would affect the CPI candidate.
Thrissur Lok Sabha seat at a glance
Total voters : 14,83,055
Male: 7,08,317
Female: 7,74,718
Transgender: 20
Key contestants:
K Muraleedharan Congress
V S Sunil Kumar CPI
Suresh Gopi BJP
2019 Results
Winner: T N Prathapan Congress
Runner-up: Rajaji Mathew Thomas CPI
Margin: 93,633
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