Electioneering is yet to pick up momentum at Vengara as the Assembly constituency is going to a byelection on October 11.
Voters at Vengara are seemingly unenthused as the campaign by major political parties is still tepid. The prime reason for the lack of interest among the voters is the candidates. Neither the United Democratic Front (UDF) nor the Left Democratic Front (LDF), the two main contenders, has posted a candidate of political glamour.
As T.V. Murshid, a businessman at Vengara, puts it, the byelection is a matter of routine for the political parties. “No candidate deserving special mention and no issue of special importance either is being discussed,” he said.
The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), whose general secretary P.K. Kunhalikutty quit the Vengara Assembly seat to contest to the Lok Sabha from Malappuram in April this year, has fielded its district general secretary K.N.A. Khader to retain the seat.
Taking on Mr. Khader is the CPI(M)’s P.P. Basheer, who was Mr. Kunhalikutty’s opponent in the 2016 Assembly election. Neither Mr. Khader nor Mr. Basheer has anything to excite the voters of Vengara, although they both claim otherwise.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded K. Janachandran, one of the best candidates it has in the district. The party had polled only 7,055 votes in the 2016 election. BJP leaders claimed that they would improve their vote share by a good margin this time.
Although the political parties are showing some vigour on stages, they apparently lack sharpness in placing issues for discussion before the people. When the UDF is leveling criticisms against the State and Central governments, the LDF has the routine secularism and the anti-Modi and anti-fascist arguments for the voters.
The BJP is presenting the achievements of the Central government as their trump card.
Both the LDF and the UDF leaders agreed that the campaign would turn raucous by about a week before the polling date. “But you can’t expect it to be a byelection that we saw in Malappuram on April 12,” said M.P. Mohammed, a local leader of the IUML.