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Community equations hold key in Pathanamthitta seat

Pathanamthitta: The electoral fight in central Kerala’s Pathanamthitta constituency, where the Sabarimala temple is situated, has acquired special significance this time.

Pathanamthitta, with a dominant Christian population, is a known Congress-led UDF stronghold that elected sitting Congress MP and present candidate Anto Antony in the last two elections.

Yet, the political play over the Sabarimala issue has given a new dimension to the electoral fight here this time.

Given that many parts of this constituency were ravaged by the recent floods means that the poll debate will also be about the state government’s handing of the crisis and its after math. From Pathanamthitta, the BJP has fielded its senior leader K Surendran, who was jailed for more than 20 days and was slapped with over 220 cases during the BJP-led agitation against the Supreme Court allowing entry of young women into the Sabarimala temple and the Pinarayi Vijayan government’s efforts to implement the court order by citing its constitutional duty.

Yet another dimension was added to the contest when the LDF fielded sitting (Left-backed) independent MLA Veena George on the “CPM symbol” and chief minister Vijayan chose to give this seat his most personal political attention.

This means an extremely prestigious fight for all three sides—the BJP’s bid is to win the Lok Sabha seat where the Sabarimala temple is situated, while CM Vijayan wants ‘the woman’ LDF candidate to win and defeat the BJP to score a point on his pro-young women entry stand on Sabarimala. For the Congress, the tricky job is to guard its base from the two-pronged attack.

Beyond the campaign rhetoric, what is crucial is the cast-community line-up. Christians account for about 35% of the population and Muslims 7%. The reason the CPM— which has some traditional support among the Hindus here—has been of late promoting former TV journalist Veena George—who has no Communist students and youth movement background—is due to her family’s close connections with the Orthodox Church, to which most Christians here belong.

The BJP, which came third in the last polls—with 1.39 lakh votes against winner Antony’s 3.59 votes— is working to tap the claimed “post-Sabarimala under currents” in order to wean away sections of Hindu voters of both Congress and LDF.

Antony, a Catholic who won with Congress’ traditional support among both the majority and minority communities here, will have to first unite the faction-ridden local Congress and then guard against the Left’s bid for Christian consolidation under the red flag on the one hand and the BJP’s bid to poach the Hindu base of Congress on the other. This makes the role of the Nair community—which accounts for over 20% voters—and the election stand the Nair Service Society (NSS) leadership takes crucial for both the Congress and the BJP in this electoral battle, especially in the backdrop of the recent verbal spats between Vijayan and the NSS leadership.

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