In Munambam, protest could swing polls in NDA’s favour

Kochi: Even as the voting progressed a kilometre away at St Joseph LP School in northeast Munambam, the residents' protest against the waqf board's claim over their land continued at the tent erected opposite the Velankanni Matha Church in Pallippuram. In Vypeen constituency, where Munambam is located, voter turnout remained strong, with polling of 80.5% recorded as of 7 pm. It is a significant rise compared to the figure in the previous elections (75.84%). With neither of the major fronts finding a final solution to the crisis, the residents say that many voters in the area are planning to repeat the trend of voting for NDA. However, the issue is unlikely to cause a major impact across the constituency. In the local body elections held in Dec last year, BJP candidate Kunjimon Augustine secured victory in the Munambam Kadappuram ward of Pallippuram grama panchayat, where a majority of the affected families reside. He secured 582 votes and defeated the CPM candidate by 31 votes. The region had never elected a BJP candidate before that day, as most of those who voted for Kunjimon were either Congress or CPM voters in the past. For the assembly polls, the NDA candidate in Vypeen is Twenty20's Anitha Thomas. When BJP and Twenty20 contested separately in the previous elections, the parties secured 16,540 and 13,385 votes, respectively. A back of the envelope calculation would thus give NDA nearly 30,000 votes now. Shashi Muringathara, a protestor at the tent, said that they are sure that all the votes that went to BJP in the local body polls will again be polled in favour of the NDA candidate this time. Pradeep Munthandassery, another protestor, admitted that there was little time for the two parties to coordinate. "Since the alliance was formed very late, the parties didn't get enough time to coordinate," said Pradeep.