A tough triangular awaits Palakkad

Palakkad, Apr 23: Will Former Union Minister O Rajagopal's third attempt from the Palakkad constituency help the BJP to realise its long-cherished dream of sending its first member to the Kerala Assembly? This is the question being raised in the constituency where the senior BJP leader is fighting United Democratic Front (UDF) Candidate A V Gopinath (Congress) and Left Democratic Front (LDF) nominee K K Divakaran of the CPI(M).

Since the BJP has deep roots in the district where it won 17 of the 50 wards in the Palakkad Municipality in the recently-held local body elections, both the Fronts cannot take the party lightly.

The confident BJP, which emerged as the single largest party in the Palakkad Municipality, fielded Mr Rajagopal in his home turf in a bid to open its account in the Kerala Assembly.

The party hopes to win the seat as it has more than 30,000 solid votes. To ensure a victory, party campaign managers had brought almost all its national leaders to canvass votes for Mr Rajagopal.

Pointing out to developmental work implemented during Mr Rajagopal tenure as Minister of State for Railways in the Vajpayee Government, the BJP claims he had introduced a daily express train connecting the state capital with the border district of Tamil Nadu.

Besides, he had cleared construction of three railway overbridges in Palakkad Town.

Congress candidate A V Gopinath is seeking votes to take forward the development work started by the UDF Government headed by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy.

The LDF fielded Mr Divakaran, a trade union leader, to wrest the seat which it lost to Former Kerala Finance Minister K Sankaranarayanan by a margin of 10,805 votes in the 2001 Assembly elections.

Mr Divakaran said the LDF would win the seat as it had won all the gram panchayats in the constituency in the local body elections. He alleged Mr Sankaranarayan had not taken any effective steps in solving the acute dinking water scarcity, the main issue in the constituency and the isses of paddy farmers. A confident Mr Divakaran said, ''I will win the seat with a margin not less than 6,000 votes as the people in the constituency want to end the five-year misule of the UDF Government.'' However, Mr Gopinath, also a KPCC executive member, dismissed the allegations and said his predecessor Mr Sankaranarayanan had sanctioned Rs 100 crore for various development projects in the constituency. He had also taken all possible steps to solve the drinking water problem.

On his winning chances, Mr Gopinath, who had won CPI(M) bastion Alathur in the 1991 Assembly elections, said the voters of Palakkad known him for the last 20 years and will elect him to continue the development work.

Majority of the voters in the constituency are farmers.

Except in 1966 when the CPI(M) candidate Noushad won the seat by a slender margin, they favoured the UDF candidates.

Mr Rajagopal, who first contested from Palakkad in 1965 as a Jana Sangh candidate and later in 1971 told UNI, '' This is my last contest from here.'' In his first contest, he managed to get 3,500 votes which increased t/o 17,000 votes when the Jana Sangh fielded him again, he added.

Pointing out the BJP victory in the municipal election in Palakkad, he claimed the political situation in the constituency was quite favourable to the party.

Mr Rajagopal claimed he was getting wide acceptance even from the Muslim community and they had even invited him to attend family meetings.

The constituency has an electorate of 1.53 lakh and the nearly 12,000 Brahmin votes and the nearly 18,000 Muslim votes will be crucial in deciding the winner.

UNI