Thiruvananthapuram: While neighbouring Tamil Nadu has seen film star-turned politicians — M.G. Ramachandran, J. Jayalalitha and several others — Keralites have generally believed in politicians for politics.
A rare exception has been actor K.B. Ganesh Kumar and popular comedian Innocent.
Pathanapuram constituency is very unlike any Kerala election scene. In this southern constituency, the leading fronts have all fielded popular actors.
The incumbent MLA here is Ganesh Kumar, who also boasts of a political background. His father R. Balakrishna Pillai has been a stormy petrel in Kerala politics and headed one faction of the Kerala Congress.
Ganesh Kumar himself has been a minister, like his father, and has found his footing in politics over the past decade. This time round, Kumar is the Left Democratic Front candidate from Pathanapuram.
The United Democratic Front has fielded popular comedian and a regular TV host Jagadish to contest against Kumar.
Completing the ‘star war’ in Pathanapuram is the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate, Bheeman Raghu, who has made his mark as a well-known villain in Malayalam movies.
While Jagadish and Raghu are electoral debutants, Kumar is a seasoned campaigner, having won from the Pathanapuram constituency thrice in a row from 2001.
However, this time the script is completely different for Kumar. For the past three times he was with the UDF, and his victories even earned him cabinet berths. But this time he is on the other side, contesting as a Left front candidate.
Kumar’s father, Balakrishna Pillai and he are facing the allegation of showing political opportunism, and Jagadish is hoping to gain the traditional UDF votes and then some more from the Left camp. Ganesh Kumar’s image was also dented when he was alleged by his former wife to have committed domestic violence against her.
Now that he is in the Left camp, Kumar is also under pressure to explain some of the scathing remarks he had made again the LDF, particularly against Opposition leader, V.S. Achuthanandan.
Pathanapuram had been a Left stronghold for decades until 1996. It was only later that it shifted towards the UDF, and Ganesh Kumar has been instrumental in reinforcing it as a UDF bastion, winning the 2011 poll by a margin of 20,000 votes.
Now that he is with the Left camp, he will be hoping that Pathanapuram’s voters will reinvent their love for the Left.
Whatever the outcome of the reel-life war in Pathanapuram, the Kerala assembly will have an actor representing the constituency.
