Kerala polls: Battle heats up for ‘Gujarat of Kerala’ Nemom

BJP leaders hail Nemom as the "Gujarat of Kerala" and the party's iron fortress in a state where it is still trying to find its feet.

The constituency of Nemom, a suburb located in Thiruvananthapuram district, is currently the lone seat of the BJP in the Kerala Assembly.

BJP veteran and former Union Minister O Rajagopal had won the seat in the 2016 Assembly polls with 67,813 votes by defeating CPI(M)-LDF's V Sivankutty who had secured 59,142 votes. United Democratic Front candidate V Surendran Pillai (JD-S) had finished in a distant third position with 13,860 votes.

To guard its bastion in Kerala, the saffron party has fielded senior leader and former Mizoram Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan this time around.

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It was Rajasekharan who had called Nemom the ‘Gujarat of Kerala’, drawing parallels with the party’s invincibility in Gujarat. “It is the development work of my predecessor (Rajagopal) that has helped make Nemom our Gujarat. It’s the same reason why the BJP is invincible in Gujarat,” the veteran BJP leader had told The Telegraph.

The CPI(M) has announced its former MLA V Sivankutty as the candidate in Nemom. In 2011, Sivankutty had won with a margin of around 6,400 votes, beating Rajagopal who had secured 43,661 votes.

What makes the battle triangular this time is the Congress fielding Vatakara MP and son of veteran Congress leader K Karunakaran, K Muraleedharan from Nemom.

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Interestingly, Muraleedharan had defeated Rajasekharan from the Vattiyoorkavu constituency in the 2016 Assembly elections by a margin of over 7,400 votes.

The constituency has been a disappointment for the Congress in the last two Assembly elections in 2016 and 2011 where votes secured by candidates of the Congress-led UDF stood at a distant third position. This had triggered allegations that the UDF had helped the BJP secure the seat.

“The BJP won because we fielded a weak candidate from a party with no roots here. But things are different this time,” Muraleedharan told the publication.

While the BJP is latching onto the ‘Gujarat of Kerala’ narrative for the constituency, the same hasn’t gone down well with its LDF and UDF rivals.

“We will not allow the BJP to convert Nemom into Gujarat, which is known for all the wrong reasons as opposed to Kerala that stands for progressive values,” said Congress’s Muraleedharan.

“We all know what the BJP did to Muslims in Gujarat. Malayalis will never allow him (Rajasekaran) to fulfill his Gujarat dream in Nemom,” said CPI(M) candidate Sivankutty.

Kerala is set to go to polls on April 6 with the results being declared on May 2.

(With inputs from PTI)