Kerala's Nilambur heading for a multi-cornered contest in bypolls

Thiruvananthapuram: A multi-cornered contest has become certain in the by-poll to the Nilambur assembly seat at Malappuram district in Kerala.

As the deadline for withdrawing the nominations for the June 19 polling ended on Thursday, among the ten in the fray included former MLA P V Anvar. Though there were speculations that Anvar may withdraw his candidature, he remained in the fray.

While the main contest will be between Congress candidate Aryadan Shoukath and CPM candidate M Swaraj, even a minimum number of votes that the other candidates will poll could make the contest tighter.

Nilambur has a considerable Hindu and Muslim population and the Christian population, especially high range farmers of the region comes to around ten percent could become crucial.

Apart from Anvar, the BJP fielded a former local leader of the regional party Kerala Congress (Joseph) Mohan George eyeing the Christian voters by taking advantage of the unrest among the high range farmers over the man-animal conflict.

Socialist Democratic Party of India (SDPI), which is linked with banned outfit Popular Front of India, also decided to contest in Nilambur. Going by earlier trends, a crack in Muslim vote banks could prove costly for the Congress.

Political analysts are of the view that Anvar is unlikely to get many votes.

Political observer M N Karassery said that Anvar was getting exposed himself by his immature political moves which played the spoilsport for his entry to the Congress-led UDF. He is now part of TMC, which is not familiar in Kerala. He also did not earn any goodwill as MLA during his last two terms. There is also resentment among the people against Anvar for quitting the MLA post towards the fag end of the government and there by pushing the constituency for another by-poll, he pointed out.

BJP state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that it would be a fight by the BJP against candidates of the I.N.D.I Alliance as Congress, CPM and TMC were part of the I.N.D.I.A. Alliance. The BJP was only discussing the development agenda, he added.