Congress and Marxist Muslims ensured victory of this Terrorist

Cong or Reds: Who voted for Islamists?
VR Jayaraj | Kochi

Disputes are raging in the CPI(M) and the Congress and between them as to which side was responsible for the shocking win of Anas, an Islamist professor accused in the case of the brutal, Taliban-like attack on Prof TJ Joseph, in the just-concluded civic polls by a huge margin.

Anas had won from the Vanchinad division of Vazhakulam Block Panchayat in Ernakulam district as a candidate of the SDPI, the political wing of the Popular Front of India, whose activists had cut off the right hand of Prof Joseph for preparing a question paper that allegedly blasphemed Prophet Muhammad.

The Congress and the CPI(M) are accusing each other of clandestinely helping the Islamist but the Popular Front is cashing in on the situation, using it to establish that Anas’s victory is proof of the people’s ire towards the “Muslim-hunt” the police had unleashed following the attack on Prof Joseph.

“Some may say that the victory of one of the 2,000-odd SDPI candidates need not surprise us. But it is indeed a shocking win because proves that the main parties are still covertly and overtly supporting the Islamists, who had cut off a professor’s hand,” said Murali Nair, a BJP worker in Vazhakulam.

Anas, listed as 47th accused in the case with a total of 53 accused, had won the election in the Vanchinad division, while he was lodged in the Central Prison at Viyyur, Thrissur prison in remand. He was elected with a majority of 1,903 votes, considered to be very huge in a block panchayat division.

The Islamist candidate polled 3,992 votes in the Muslim-majority division while the candidate of the Congress-led UDF got only 2,089 votes. The candidate of the CPI(M)-led LDF was pushed to the third place with only 1,666. It is in this context the Congress and the CPI(M) are charging each other with helping Anas win.

That either of the two sides or both had helped Anas win is obvious from the voting pattern in the Vanchinad block panchayat division and the Grama panchayat wards that constitute it. When the UDF candidate in the block division got only 2,089 votes the number of votes polled for UDF aspirants in the eight Grama panchayat wards was 4,369.

This is the basis on which the CPI(M) is accusing the Congress of helping the Islamist candidate. But the same charge is applicable in the case of the Left also. The LDF candidates in the eight wards had bagged a total of 2,829. But the Left candidate of the block division comprising the same eight wards had polled only 1,166 votes.

The Popular Front leadership, inspired by its win in Vazhakulam and elsewhere in the State, claim that the people of Kerala have rejected the anti-Muslim campaign of both the Congress and the CPI(M). “We have established ourselves in Kerala as a legitimate political force. Nobody can dispute it,” said a senior SDPI leader.

He claimed that both the fronts had voted for SDPI candidates, especially in areas of Muslim concentration. “But I can’t reveal which side voted for us in particular areas. I can say that right-thinking people on both sides had voted for us. We had even had victory in Vengara in Malappuram, the bastion of the Muslim League,” he said.

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