By our Special political correspondent
Thrissur, March 28 (IVC) All the three national political parties candidates are making their best efforts to win the election from the Thrissur Parliamentary Constituency (TPC) to be held on April 26.
K Muraleedharan, Karunakaran ‘s son is the Indian national Congress candidate, Advocate V S Sunilkumar, CPI candidate and the noted Malayalam cine-star, Suresh Gopi is the BJP candidate , contesting from Thrissur, the cultural capital of kerala.
The election hot plate is under maximum temperature now itself. CPI candidate has no anxiety at all of winning this time as out of 17 Lok Sabha elections CPI won 11 times and Congress won the election only six times. Hence the LDF camp holds the view that it is a pro-CPI constituency. Prominent leaders of CPI like K K Warrier, C GJ Janardhanan, C K Chandrappan and V V Raghavan had won from Thrissur.
V V Rafghavan defeated the Congress leader and four-times Chief Minister of Kerala K Karunakaran in 1996 and his son K Muraleedharan in 1998 and earned the sobriquet of giant-killer.
CPI camp expressed the hope of winning the election this time without much difficulty as the overall situation is in its favour.
Muraleedharan was nominated by the AICC for Thrissur at the last moment in the light of his direct-sister Padmaja Venugopal’s joining the Bharatiya Janata Party , the enemy of the Indian National Congress and his late beloved father Karunakaran.
UDF camp finds that the situation of Thrissur in 1998 was entirely different today and the political situation is quite favourable to Congress party.
The ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) was under great stress of financial stringency. The opposition UDF attributes the financial stringency in the State to lavishness of ministers and LDF MLAS. The law and order position of the State was controlled by the CPM’s students wing –
Students Federation of India (SFI) and its youth wing Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI). The law and order situation in the State is similar to that 1959 when the central Government dismissed the first EMS Namboodiripad Government for breakdown of law and order position.
LDF Government’s justification that the financial stringency was due to squeezing of finance from the Centre was not given heed by any body and the common man finds faults with the Government for failure of paying monthly salaries and pension at least to the retired government servants.
Congress finds it easy to convert the financial stringency and breakdown of law and order position as votes in favour of UDF. According to UDF camp workers, Muraleedharan has improved a lot and qualified to be electoral funambulist in Politics like his father.
BJP candidate pinning his hope of winning this time from Thrissur Lok Sabha constituency and open the account in the 18th Lok Sabha from Kerala, a long cherished wish of BJP.
In the last Lok Sabha elections Suresh Gopi scored 2,93,822 votes which was quite unexpected of the BJP. Last Lok Sabha elections, Suresh Gopi was nominated by the BJP at the eleventh hour and had sufficient time and machinery to make the workers fully utilized. BJP is sure of winning the seat this time as the worked had started election work well in advance.
The Prime Minister Narendra Damodar Modi had visit Thrissur on January 03 and inaugurated a women convention with a view to seeking support of women voters. On January middly, the Prime Minister Modi had participated in Suresh Gopi’s daughter’s marrigare at Guruvayur temple and blessed the couple.
It is understood from BJP sources that the Prime Minister would visit again Thrissur as part of canvassing votes for Suresh Gopi.
The Christian electorate in the constituency a determining factor in winning the elections. They constituted 24.5 per cent of the electorate .
The Union Home Minister Mr Amit Shah had met two times the Catholic Archbishop of Thrissur with a view to seeking his support of BJP. The Archbishop of Thrissur is the President of Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), the apex body of the Catholics in India.
Suresh Gopi has personally made his best efforts to seek the support of Christian electorate in the constituency. He had offered a crown to the deity of Thrissur Lourdes Cathedral
The main church of the archdiocese. The Virgin Mary (Mother of Jesus) had been dedicated to the Lourdes Cathedral here in sweet memory of her apparition to some shepherd children at Lourde (France) several years ago.
Though a controversy erupted in Gopi’s offering a crown to the deity of Lourdes Cathedral, it had no desired result of his opponents and its publicity did not last long .
Suresh Gopi publicly announced in the thick of controversy whether the crown was gold or copper, that he would offer gold worth ten lakh rupees to the deity of the Cathedral, the Madonna If he won the Lok Sabha election from Thrissur Constituency this time.
A section of Christian electorate finds that it is the lack of faith in the Madonna for Gopi that he offered a conditional corban of rupees ten lakh worth gold. They said that ten lakh rupees is just pea nuts for a cine actor like Suresh Gopi and hence they expressed the pious that Suresh would present gold worth ten lakh rupees to Lourdes Cathedra before the eletionsonApril 26.
The supporters of the BJP express the hope that BJP is not untouchable to Christians and congress workers as earlier. Ak Antony’s son and Karunakaran’s daughter also joined BJP .
Moreover, the policy of the Church is to support the ruling dispensation. The Church in Indian was in support of Britian, when that country ruled India for about two centuries. The Church was against Indian national Congress. Mahatma Gandhi was the “anti-Christ” to the Christians then. When Congrees party came into power, Church unconditionally supported Congress.
