Thiruvananthapuram: Senior CPI(M) leader and former Kerala health minister K.K. Shailaja is trailing against KPCC (Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee) president Sunny Joseph in Kannur’s Peravoor seat by 5,000-plus votes (12.30 pm, 5/14 rounds done).
Located in Kannur district, the constituency has been a traditional Congress seat, represented by Joseph since 2011.
The CPI(M) chose Shailaja to contest from here in a bid to reclaim the seat, according to party leaders, though her candidacy also led to allegations of her being sidelined. Shailaja had won from Peravoor in 2006, before the delimitation.
Though Shailaja remains one of the Left’s most recognisable faces after her handling of the Nipah and Covid crises, her political journey since the pandemic has repeatedly sparked talk of her being sidelined within the CPI(M).
In 2021, despite winning from the district’s Mattannur by a record margin of over 60,000 votes, she was dropped from the new state cabinet when the party brought in an entirely fresh team.
Similarly, she was fielded in 2024 from Vadakara Lok Sabha constituency, held by the Congress since 2009, against the latter’s Shafi Parambil, but lost by over 1.1 lakh votes.
Shailaja has, however, defended the party’s decision. She said the party’s policy was not to field senior leaders consecutively from safe seats, except for Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in his Dharmadam constituency, which resulted in party leader V.K. Sanoj, Democratic Youth Federation of India’s Kerala secretary, being fielded from her incumbent seat of Mattannur.
“Party asked me: ‘You should be in the list. You should be among the candidates… you should contest in Peravoor again and catch that constituency for the LDF (ruling Left Democratic Front).’ So I, with pride and enthusiasm, like to contest here, according to the party’s decision,” she had told ThePrint during the campaign last month.
Located over 40 km away from the district headquarters, Peravoor has a sizable Christian and Muslim population. Since 1977, it has largely supported the Congress, except from 2006 to 2011, when Shailaja won from the seat.
However, the constituency was reorganised in the 2008 delimitation, and in the subsequent assembly elections in 2011, when Shailaja was fielded again, she lost to Sunny Joseph by a small margin. Joseph retained the constituency in the 2016 election and once again in 2021, but not with large margins.
Facing the election for a fourth consecutive term, Joseph’s campaign involved extensive travel across the constituency, with public meetings by local functionaries at almost every key junction. Meanwhile, Shailaja and the CPI(M) were pinning hopes on the anti-incumbency sentiment against Joseph and his dwindling victory margin over the last two terms.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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