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Left-turned-right
makes sailing through tough for sitting MLA
Manoj
Mathew
Thiruvananthapuram,
May 1: Thiruvananthpuram west is one constituency where the
sitting MLA has become a miserable underdog overnight, thanks to
the UDF’s decision to allot the seat to Communist Marxist Party
(CMP) state secretary M.V. Raghavan — a former CPM leader who
has now become its bete noire.
But LDF candidate and sitting MLA Antony Raju seems unfazed by either
MVR or the attention the coastal constituency is attracting due
to the latter’s candidature. For, it is not the first time
that Raju has started as an underdog. In the 1996 polls, senior
Congress leader M.M. Hassan lost to him by about 7,000 votes. The
constituency, till then, was considered Hassan’s fort. MVR
knows too well what games his former colleagues are capable of,
to finish him off. So he is now on a mission of meeting as many
voters as he can. MVR has learnt his lesson from his defeat at Aranmula
in the last elections.
The perceived BJP support for MVR here may not turn out to be a
boon for him, as he faces the danger of losing Muslim votes. For
the Assembly elections this time, the BJP is not fielding any candidate
here.
A confident Raju claims that his will be a historic victory. He
is banking on the grassroots support and the vote bank he carefully
cultivated in the last five years through various development projects
in the constituency. His achievements include, the six-lane road
from Overbridge Junction to East Fort, the Pattom-Plammodu bridge,
renovation of the Sreevarahom temple pond, cleansing of Parvathyputhenar
canal, title deeds for 6,000 houses and construction of 2,500 houses
for the poor under the Maitri scheme.
The PDP support to the UDF has given a boost to MVR’s prospects
as the party has pockets of influence in the constituency. The PDP
has two corporation councillors from the constituency which accounts
for 23 corporation wards.
The Latin Catholic Church’s decision to back Raju does not
perturb MVR much as he knows that with the support of the Congress
leaders from the community, he can make inroads into this vote bank
as well. He has reportedly pinned his hopes on the middle-class
voters of the Latin Catholic community.
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