Kerala Election: Why UDF Can Be Optimistic About Alappuzha

Daleema Jojo, the LDF candidate in Aroor looks slightly overwhelmed by the gravity of the contest and is very much the underdog here. She hails from the Latin Christian community and added with the Ezhava vote bank of the CPI, her candidature would have been a masterstroke but for the controversy surrounding the EMCC deep sea fishing contract. We head to Alappuzha where Marxist-turned-Congressman and former Alappuzha MP K S Manoj is on a strong wicket against CPI ’s J Chitharanjan. “I was here with the people of Alappuzha through thick and thin while Dr K S Manoj was a non-resident politician who was nowhere in sight during the floods and Covid times and that’s why I shall win”, declares a confident Chitharanjan, before rushing off to an adjoining colony with narrow lanes. As the CPI candidate deputed to defeat V M Sudheeran in 2004, Manoj had used desperate measures like fielding dummy candidates and appealing to communal sentiments to emerge victorious by a wafer thin margin.