Will an evolving League boost UDF’s prospects?

The narrow winding road from Narikkode to Keezhariyur was decked ina sea of flags.

- Amrith Lal

A campaign poster of Fathima Thahliya, the IUML candidate from Perambra constituency in Kerala.

(HT PHOTO)

The red flag of the CPI(M), the green flag of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), and the hand-stamped tricolour of the Congress acted as signposts to the political preferences of this rural area in northern Kerala, where agrarian prosperity had long ago given way to wealth from Gulf remittances. A small memorial stood sentinel to the memory of the Hindu-Muslim cast of the Keezhariyur Bomb Conspiracy case. This is where local socialists, led by KB. Menon (later a Member of Parliament), plotted to bomb the railway following the launch of the Quit India Movement in 1942. It is here that Fathima Thahliya is seeking a place in history.

In a party synonymous with male politicians, Thahliya is an exception. A 34-year-old lawyer from Kozhikode, she is one of the two women candidates of the IUML, the Congress's most valuable ally within the United Democratic Front (UDF). Her candidature has changed the nature of the contest in Perambra, a storied constituency near Kozhikode ringed by the Western Ghats to its east and the Korappuzha estuary in the west, which has voted for Left Democratic Front candidates in all elections since 1980. Her entry threatens to upset LDF convenor and former CPI(M) minister TP Ramakrishnan’s reelection (though TP won with a margin of over 22,000 votes in 2021). Irrespective of the outcome, her candidature is a marker of massive changes underway in the Muslim politics of Malabar. It bodes well for the general health of politics in Kerala, where political parties are obstinate about sending women to the state assembly and Parliament; in fact, only 7.86% of Kerala’s MLAs are women.