VS Achuthanandan pulls crowd, but votes unsure

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: CPM may have managed to attract people in hordes to its election meetings courtesy V S Achuthanandan, the state leadership’s real challenge would be in converting these crowds into votes in crucial Aruvikkara bypoll on June 27.

The reports emerging from the constituency indicate that LDF electioneering machinery at booth level is yet to work effectively in many areas. The presence of party members, who are responsible especially for man to man marking of voters, is not satisfactory in several areas.

While the LDF cadres particularly CPM workers have been galvanised by the  entry of Achuthanandan who was kept out of the inaugural LDF convention,  the  exhilarating response generated by him is yet to trickle down to booth level committees. 

Observers say there are 153 polling booths spread across eight panchayats in the constituency and only an effective election machinery comprising party members, could ensure the task of converting mass support into votes.

Sources said after the huge response to Achuthanandan’s opening public meeting at Aryanad, there have been demands from the party workers from various places to bring the veteran leader to speak at local level meetings.

However, the 92-year-old leader has stuck to his original plan of addressing just “a meeting a day” and a road show as grand finale. His health cannot take such a strenuous campaign schedule. 

On the party front, experts say Achuthanandan’s high voltage campaign has  pushed politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan to the background. It is in this background that state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan reiterated in Alappuzha that Pinarayi was in charge of the campaign in Aruvikkara. He even took a dig at Achuthanandan saying that some people have been deputed as speakers in the constituency.