By our Special political correspondent
Thrissur, June 05 (IVC) A large section of sincere supporters of the Congress leader and sitting MP from Vadakara suspected that there was a large scale foul play with a view to defeating Muraleedharan in the Thrissur Parliamentary Constituency election held on April 26, the results of which were declared yesterday(June 04).
The noted Malayalam cine star and BJP candidate, Suresh Gopi won the election with a very impressive majority of 74,686 votes, cornering Congress leader Muraleedharan to the third place, giving a humiliating defeat.
Suresh Gopi’s victory was a double whammy for the BJP that it could open an account in the Lok Sabha, a long cherished wish of the Bharatiiya Janata Party from Kerala that too Thrissur a citadel of Catholics with 24.5 electorate and BJP could contain the propaganda by the opposition parties that minority had no security in India if BJP came to power again .
Besides, the constituency consisted of two dioceses at Irnijalakuda and Thrissure, several churches over 400 , many convents and tributary organizations of Churches and convents in the constituency.
It was the practice of the Catholic electorate to vote in masse for the Congress candidate and pave the way for his victory, irrespective of the candidate’s drawback.
Muraleedharan was defeated in the constituency by CPI leader and former Kerala Minister V V Raghavan in 1998 with a majority of 38,399 votes.
Earlier in 1996, V V Raghavan had defeated Muraleedharan’s father late K KRUNAKARAN with a narrow majority of 1480 votes.
Thus Raghavan earned the sobriquet of giant killer by defeating father and son duo in 1996 and 1998.
After the declaration of results in 1996, Karunakaran had in answering a query from the newsmen, he had stated “Congressmen stabbed me from front and back” and that was the reason for his defeat in the election. The INC congress could be defeated only by Congressmen and not by opposition parties, Karunakaran had stated.
To substantiate this Karunakaran had stated that INC was defeated in 1977 when a large number of INC leaders joined hands with Janata Party and installed Morarji Desai as the Prime Minister of India.
Similarly in 1989 also, non-Congress Government assumed office, when a section of Congress leaders including V P Singh, then the Finance Minister in the Cabinet of Rajiv Gandhi, joined hands with the opposition parties.
A senior Congress leader who pleaded anonymity stated that Karunakaran consoled on his defeat quoting from the Bible “ A man’s enemies are the men of his own house”
The senior Congress leader attributed to the miserable failure of Muraleedharan by a section of Congressmen pretended to be the sincere supporters ‘ foul play “ .
If no foul play and tripping up the of heels of Muraleedharan by congressmen themselves had occurred, the majority of Suresh Gopi would not be so high, especially when there was a UDF wave in the State on account of anti-incumbency, he added,
Besides, the UDF candidates had the impressive victories in the so called fortresses of the CPM (Communist Kottakal) like Palakad, Vadakara, Knnur and Kasargode. In Palakad , V K Sreekandan defeated CPM candidate C Krishnamar with a majority of 75, 283 votes, in Vadakara Congress Candidate Shafi Parambil secured a majority of 1,14 506 votes, in Kannur, KPCC President K Sudhakaran gained 1,08,982 votes majority and in Kasargode Congress candidate Rajmohan Unnithan secured a majority of 1,00,649 votes despite all odds.
The senior Congress leder said that with the defeat of Muraleedharan it was proved beyond doubt that the words of K Karunakaran that congress could be defeated by Congressmen only. IVC ckg Tcr Vadakara suspected that there was a large scale foul play with a view to defeating Muraleedharan in the Thrissur Parliamentary Constituency election held on April 26, the results of which were declared yesterday(June 04).
