Kerala's Alathur LS seat a prestige battle for CPI(M) & Congress

Alathur Lok Sabha constituency, a reserved constituency this time, will witness an intense battle between the CPI(M) and the Congress.

The battle is prestigious for the CPI(M) as it has given the seat to one its most popular faces -- State Minister of ST/SC and Devasoms K. Radhakrishnan, whose Assembly constituency Chelakara also is in Alathur.

The Congress has repeated its candidate, Remya Haridas, who has been asked to defend the seat.

While Alathur is in Palakkad district, this constituency has four Assembly constituencies from the district and three from the Trissur district.

The CPI(M)-led Left holds all the seven Assembly constituencies.

While Radhakrishnan, is a former Speaker of the Assembly and also a state minister when he won his debut election in 1996, Remya Haridas stole the limelight in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls when she trounced sitting youth CPI(M) leader P.K. Biju, who was looking for a hat-trick win from Alathur.

Haridas, also a youth leader, walked into the hearts of her voters in 2019 by singing songs during her campaign. She won the seat with a massive margin of over 1.58 lakh votes.

“Yes, this time also I will reach out to my voters by singing songs and I don’t think there is anything wrong in it,” said Remya and started singing a few lines when she was spotted at her campaign.

But Radhakrishnan and the CPI(M) know that the margin that their seven candidates got from the Assembly polls in 2021, which fall in the Alathur Lok Sabha constituency, is in excess of two lakh votes and that’s their strength.

What has raised eyebrows is the BJP-led NDA is yet to announce their candidate and with Prime Minister Narendra Modi arriving at Palakkad on Tuesday, they are expected to announce the name soon.

At the 2019 polls, the BJP-led NDA candidate won around 89,000 votes.

Incidentally, Alathur constituency was formed in 2009 after being carved out from the erstwhile Ottapalam Lok Sabha constituency and nearby areas.

The Ottapalam Lok Sabha seat came into national reckoning as it was from here that the country’s former President K.R. Narayanan won three successive elections in 1984, 1989 and 1991 before occupying the top chair. In 1992 he became the Vice-President and five years later the President.