E-Paper
From law classmates to ex-DGP: The many hues of local body election candidates in Kerala
Kerala voters will choose local representatives on Dec 9 and 11, with 75,632 candidates, including notable first-timers and quirky contests.
In less than two weeks, voters in Kerala will head to the polling booths to choose their representatives for the three-tier rural and urban local bodies. Conducted every five years, the elections are fought along political lines with candidates being fielded on party tickets.
This time, the voting will take place in two phases on December 9 and 11 across the state’s 14 districts, with the counting of votes scheduled for December 13.
As per the final figures released by the State Election Commission (SEC), which is conducting the polls, a total of 75,632 candidates are in the fray, with women outnumbering men.
Barring 14 wards where candidates (all of LDF) won uncontested, elections will be held to 17,337 wards in 941 gram panchayats, 2267 wards in 152 block panchayats, 346 wards in 14 district panchayats, 3205 wards in 86 municipalities and 421 wards in six corporations.
With so many candidates, with varying hues and from different backgrounds, in the poll arena, there are bound to be some interesting ones and some quirky contests. Here are some of them:
Four female students from the same law campus in Kannur are set to try their luck in the electoral arena for the first time from four different districts. Guided by the shared political ideology of the Left, the four students – Ashrin Kalakkat, Aswathi Das, Anupriya Krishna and Shivani Parambatt – have a unique opportunity to kickstart their political careers at the grassroot level in their home districts while taking along their law background. While Ashrin, Aswathi and Anupriya are studying LLM, Shivani is an LLB student.
Three of them – Anupriya, Aswathi and Shivani – are contesting grama panchayat wards in their home districts of Kannur Palakkad and Malappuram, Ashrin is fighting in a municipality ward in Irinjalakuda in Thrissur district.
It was in January 1987 that R Sreelekha made history as the first woman IPS officer in the Kerala cadre at the age of 26. What followed was a remarkable career during which she worked as a district superintendent in three districts, SP of the CBI unit, head of state-run institutions like Roads and Bridges Corporation and Rubber Marketing Federation and finally becoming the DGP of Kerala Fire and Rescue Services and retiring in 2020. After joining the BJP and taking the political plunge last year, Sreelekha has signed up for a new assignment — fighting the municipal corporation elections from the Sasthamangalam ward in Thiruvananthapuram. If the party wins a majority in the council, the ex-IPS officer is even tipped to become the next mayor of the state capital.
The chances of two candidates fighting from the same municipal ward having the same name are less, but never zero. That’s exactly what’s happening in the Ambalam ward in Tripunithura municipality in Ernakulam district where a fierce contest is underway between K Radhika Varma of the BJP and Radhika Varma of the CPI(M). Though from rival political fronts, both are friends. BJP’s Varma is the two-time sitting councillor from the ward and a member of the party’s state council. This perhaps gives her an edge in the contest as she is quite well-known among voters. However, CPM’s Varma is no pushover either. She is the president of the women’s Kathakali troupe in the town and has graced dozens of stages, making her familiar to a large section of people. Which Radhika Varma will emerge victorious, December 13 will tell.
Day in and day out, the work that Wilfred Raj does in the mortuary at the Kozhikode Government Medical College Hospital would make anyone shudder. He has the job of preparing bodies for last rites for the deceased’s relatives after autopsies. The work that Raj did was so important that he was affectionately called “the makeup man in the mortuary” by his colleagues and friends. He claims that he has prepared and “presented” over 7,100 bodies during his long career. Now, Raj has taken a step in front to contest local body polls and engage in social service. He is contesting as the RJD (LDF) candidate in the Nadakkavu ward in Kozhikode Municipal Corporation. He faces Agnivesh S Cheroth of Congress and Praveen Thaliyil of BJP.
In India, going from being an MLA to a gram panchayat member or president is considered a demotion in their career and most wouldn’t go for it. But not Congress leader and ex-MLA Anil Akkara.
The 53-year-old, who represented Wadakkanchery in the state Assembly between 2016 and 2021 after winning by just 43 votes, has decided to go back to the grassroots and fight elections from the Adat panchayat in his hometown. Akkara, who has served as Adat panchayat president in the past and had made headlines for his development initiatives in farming and sanitation sectors, wants to win back the panchayat, currently ruled by the CPM-led LDF, for his party. In 2021 elections, the Congress trailed the CPM in Akkara’s own ward and panchayat. The ex-MLA has told local media that it’s a matter of prestige for him to wrest the panchayat’s power from the CPI(M).
Ajanya S Aji, a native of Malayankeezhu panchayat in Thiruvananthapuram district, turned 21, the minimum age to contest elections, just four days ahead of the declaration of local body election dates by the SEC. And so, Ajanya is perhaps the youngest in the state to contest the local body polls this time.
A third-year arts degree student, Ajanya is fighting from the Thachottukavu ward in her native grama panchayat on an LDF ticket.
From an age standpoint, she has a lot of inspiration to get as it was in the previous election that the LDF nominated Arya Rajendran, then just 21, was elected as the mayor of Thiruvananthapuram Corporation.
