Candidates raring to go despite handicaps

Puthupally: When the dark clouds of adverse poll predictions and thoughts of the likely repercussions of internal warfare in the coalition haunt the United Democratic Front in Kerala, it can turn to Puthupally for solace.

In the village, Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy seems to have cast such a spell that the people opt for no one else when the polls come calling.

This election is hardly different for Chandy, except for the fact that he was handicapped earlier this year after a fall in Davos, Switzerland, where he had been to participate in the World Economic Forum.

The physical handicap seems to have had only a minimal impression on the fast-paced chief minister whose government called itself a fast-forward government in its advertisement copy.

Unmindful of the hip bone injury, Chandy is zipping through the length and breadth of the constituency.

If there is anything different this time, it is the fact that Chandy has to deal with an opponent who is out of the ordinary, the young and sprightly Sindhu Joy, state president of the Students Federation of India, who, like Chandy, is also on crutches.

While Chandy's injury resulted from his quick-paced walk on Swiss ice, Sindhu's is a result of a police thrashing she took while leading SFI marches against the government.

Sindhu has managed to give an extra fillip to her campaign efforts by mobilising a squad of over 500 workers of the SFI, who are touring every inch of this constituency to ensure that their state president gives the chief minister a real contest.

Just as Chandy moves about in a specially-fitted vehicle that allows him to absorb the strain of campaigning, Sindhu too goes around in a jeep which has railings to help her support herself while speaking or waving to her supporters.

Sindhu alleges that the constituency has not benefited much despite Chandy having been a famous leader in Kerala politics from here and the chief minister of the state for nearly two years.

The Chandy camp is not overly worried about this, and is banking on his personal rapport with tens of thousands of people in the constituency who throng his house every weekend when he personally meets them and receives petitions.

PREPARATIONS
Curtain comes down on first poll phase

The curtain came down on the public electioneering in the first phase of the Kerala Assembly polls at 5pm yesterday after the vote-catching drive was joined by political heavyweights of various hues at the eleventh hour.

In the first phase of elections Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha, Kottayam and Idukki districts go to the polls tomorrow.

In all, there are 409 candidates and voters march to 8,292 booths in the six southern districts.

State Election Commissioner Nalini Netto said that all preparations for the elections had been completed.

Thiruvananthapuram North tops the list of the first phase constituencies in terms of the number of voters, with 193,289.

Kuttandadu constituency accounts for the lowest number of voters, with 110,353.

In the six districts, the candidates of the ruling Congress-led United Democratic Front and the opposition Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Democratic Front are locked in a grim battle of ballots.