Deve Gowda can sleep over this one right through the campaign. He is dreaming nationally; his partymen are rebelling locally. In this reserved constituency they are out to wreck CPI(M), the humble farmer’s vital Third Front partner. Will humbler farmers play along is the question in this farm belt. Till the other day, the steady junior partner of the Left Democratic Front, Janata Dal(S) — at any rate its state leadership — was openly rooting for the Congress. The big bitter swing could happen in Alathur’s Chittoor Assembly segment.

As many as 30,000 portable votes, enough to spoil the Left chances, claims Krishnankutty, the Secretary General of the state JD(S). He has a long-held base here and is a busy man. Shuttling between booth committees, public rallies and media briefings, he even finds time to tutor ‘easygoing Congressmen’ on farm loan waivers and farmer suicide statistics. The last are issues that resonate here. Out of 951 farmer suicides in the state till 2006, nine happened in this rice bowl and loans remain unwaived despite a Front in power with a welfarist edge.

Unsurprisingly, Krishnankutty has only good words for Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan; pure acid is reserved for CPI(M) state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan. The Kozhikode parliamentary seat was denied to JD(S) state president Veerendra Kumar, sitting MP and media baron whose Mathrubhumi daily ran stories targeting Vijayan on the Lavalin scam. Krishnankutty is too seasoned a player to let go of the legendary Marxist turf war between the CM and party chief which he estimates will play out majorly in the poll.

... contd.