Retaining Nemom key to BJP’s Kerala push

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The electoral contest in Nemom, a little known constituency in Thiruvananthapuram, is increasingly being seen as a possible verdict on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) efforts to expand its influence in the state. The fight for the only assembly seat won by the party in the last assembly elections has become a battle of prestige, with the party’s candidate describing Nemom as “Kerala’s Gujarat”, suggesting it is the BJP’s impregnable fortress. The Congress and the Left are desperate to prove him wrong.

“I came here to win. I will stop the BJP run not in Nemom alone, but also in the whole state,” said Congress candidate K Muraleedharan, the son of former chief minister K Karunakaran and a MP from Vadakara.

The seat is important enough for the Congress to field Muraleedharan (64) from it, overlooking its principle of not fielding any MP in assembly elections. At one point, it even considered fielding former chief minister

Oommen Chandy. The ruling CPI(M) has fielded party strongman V Sivankutty (66), who represented Nemom in 2011 before losing it to BJP veteran O Rajagopal in the 2016 elections.

With nearly 200,000 voters, the urban constituency has a sizsitting able upper caste Hindu population. The BJP candidate is former Mizoram governor, Kummanam Rajasekharan (68) who said: “The battle for Kerala will begin here.”

The Congress and the CPI (M) claim otherwise.

“Nemom will remain the BJP’s first and the last seat,” said former defence minister A K Antony, who played a key role in fielding Muraleedharan.

“Both parties, the Congress and the CPM have teamed up against me. They have just a onepoint agenda. To beat the BJP. But the party will emerge a decisive force in the state and Nemom will mark the beginning,” said Rajasekharan.

The former RSS pracharak (full time worker) said Muraleedharan’s candidature is being hyped but won’t impact his chances. The party is planning to parade some of its tallest leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah to bolster Rajasekharan’s campaign. “Nemom is our fort. Even Rahul Gandhi can’t win here,” said BJP state president K Surendran. To create the Gujarat connect, the party is showing slides of developmental works carried out in Gujarat under the BJP’s two-decade rule.

The LDF candidate Sivankutty said the state is set to rewrite its poll history by giving a second term to Pinarayi Vijayan government. “The BJP is pumping in money, but Kerala is not suitable for its communal agenda.”

In the 2016 polls, Rajagopal defeated Sivankutty by a margin of over 800 votes and UDF’s Surendran Pillai was a distant third. This time, analysts say, the main fight will be between the Congress and the BJP.

BJP’s Nemom candidate Kummanam Rajasekharan at the house of a party worker.