Brisk polling in Nemom, Kazhakkottam in Kerala
April 06, 2021
Brisk polling has been reported from the five or six Assembly segments in Thiruvananthapuram district which are witnessing some of the prestigious fights with all three fronts - the outgoing CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF), main opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) and spirited contender BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) - locked in fierce multi-cornered contests.
Among these are Nemom from where Kummanam Rajasekharan (BJP), former Mizoram Governor, takes on K Muraleedharan of the Congress and V Sivankutty of the CPI(M); Kazhakoottam, where Kadakampalli Suredran, Temple Administration Minister in the LDF government has run into strong opposition from firebrand Sobha Surendran (BJP) and SS Lal (Congress); and VV Rajesh, President of district BJP, confronts sitting MLA VK Prasanth (CPI(M) and debutant Veena Nair of the Congress.
Is Kerala the next laboratory for BJP to try out ‘Operation Kamala’?
April 06, 2021
K Surendran×
Will it be the suitably ‘muddy’ but untested terrain of Kerala that the BJP may choose to enact ‘Operation Kamala’, which it has carried out with clinical precision in Puducherry after blazing a trail in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Manipur and Karnataka and ultimately forming governments in those States?
Observers here have been debating this possibility after the President of the State unit of the party, K Surendran, went on record more than once saying that the party would rule ‘if it manages to get 35 to 40 seats’ in the 140-member Assembly’, where a contender party/front needs 71 seats to form a government on its own.