To win back a lost citadel, CPM relies on ‘teacher amma’ K K Shailaja’s popularity

From posters to social media posts, “teacher amma” is the central focus of the CPI(M)’s campaign in north Kerala’s Vadakara Lok Sabha constituency. The party’s candidate K K Shailaja “teacher”, the former state health minister, is popularly referred to as the “pride of Kerala” by her supporters and Left workers.

Even in Thalassery, the hometown of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and late CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan that comes under the constituency, the image of Shailaja who steered Kerala through the Covid-19 pandemic dominates the campaign. In a video, Shailaja, a former high-school teacher, stands in a classroom and talks of the CPI(M)’s stand on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), explaining that the law “discriminates based on religion”. There is even a “dine with Shailaja’’ outreach programme through which voters have a meal with her.

The CPI(M) is depending upon Shailaja’s popularity to wrest back Vadakara that was once its citadel but has been won by the Congress three straight times since 2009, when Congress veteran Mullapally Ramachandran defeated the CPI(M)’s P Satheedevi by 56,000 votes. He retained the seat in 2014, but his margin came down to 3,000 votes. In 2019, the Congress’s K Muraleedharan defeated the CPI(M)’s P Jayarajan by 86,000 votes.

Shailaja, currently an MLA from Mattannur in Kannur, will take on Palakkad MLA Shafi Parambil of the Congress. The BJP has fielded BJP youth wing BJYM’s state president Praful Krishnan. The Muslim vote, estimated to be about 31%, may prove to be decisive in Vadakara.

The constituency, which votes along with the rest of the 19 Lok Sabha seats on April 26 in the second phase, has a history of political violence and the CPI(M)’s alleged role in it has