Thiruvananthapuram : With polling in the Aruvikara assembly by-election scheduled for June 27, it’s more or less a battle between two political veterans of Kerala – 71-year-old Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and his predecessor, the 91-year-old communist leader V.S. Achuthanandan.
The election was necessitated after senior Congress leader and assembly speaker G. Karthikeyan died in March, reports IANS.
It has now become a battle between the two because they themselves have decided to lead from the front – as they have been doing for the past 11 years, engaged in a one-to-one battle with the rest of the rival front’s leaders lining up behind them. Their intense political rivalry started when Chandy replaced A.K.Antony as chief minister in 2004.
Achuthanandan was leader of the opposition at that time. Since then, they have twice swapped positions, the first time in 2006 when Achuthanandan became chief minister for the first time; then in 2011 when Chandy replaced him after the Congress-led alliance swept back to power.
Over these 11 years, the duo has clashed on numerous occasions, both inside and outside the assembly. Both have contrasting personalities – Chandy always genial and sporting a big smile, Achuthanandan mostly looking tough and rarely sporting a smile. Still, people will go the last mile to listen to Achuthanandan’s political speeches as he often hits below the belt, especially at his political adversaries, with Chandy being his favourite punching bag.
While Achuthanandan has been to Aruvikara once, Chandy has been there thrice and the crowds they drew were massive, making them the most wanted campaigners for their party candidates.
In the coming days too, both have drawn up numerous meetings to make this a real one-to-one between them.
In the fray are Karthikeyan’s younger son, 31-year-old K.S. Sabarinathan, an engineer and also a management graduate who quit a plum job. He was essentially fielded to evoke the sympathy factor at a time when the Chandy government, in the past four years, has faced numerous allegations of corruption.
