UC Raman, the unique face of IUML

KOZHIKODE: U.C. Raman  is a candidate who has been backed  by the IUML in the Assembly elections since 2001,  but he has never contested on its election symbol, ladder.  That speaks for his popularity among the masses.  He is the first Dalit candidate fielded by the IUML.     

In 2001 and 2006,  he won from the Kunnamangalam reserved seat  as  an independent.   Though he was defeated by LDF independent P.T.A.  Rahim  in 2011,  his name is  again doing the rounds in Balussery this time.  It  is one of  the four seats from where the IUML has not announced its candidates pending discussions with the Congress.

When Raman   debuted in 2001 in his home constituency Kunnamangalam as an IUML independent,  it was a reserved seat and  the IUML could not get a better candidate than him, a  Congress leader with years of experience as  panchayat member.

Raman contested with ‘aeroplane’ as the  symbol and won by 3,711 votes over the CPM’s P. Kunjan. In the next year after becoming MLA, he took the IUML membership.  In 2006, Raman repeated his feat by defeating CPM’s strongman Balan Vaidyar.  In 2011,   though Kunnamangalam  was a general seat,  the IUML  gambled  by retaining him,  but he was defeated by 3,158 votes.

Nevertheless,  the IUML  did not  let him down. Raman was appointed as the chairman of the State Handloom Development Corporation in the beginning of the present ministry. “I  feel that I am getting  undue consideration from the party. The party top brass is keen to know my opinions on various issues,” Raman told Deccan Chronicle.  But  he has never  contested on IUML’s  symbol, ladder.

“It was purely an election strategy to garner  the maximum votes,” smiles Raman, who is the IUML state working committee member now. “The late IUML supremo Panakkad Mohammadali Shihab Thangal never asked me to become a party member.  He wanted me to uphold  clean politics keeping all my religious beliefs and customs intact,”  Raman reminisced.   He  has been  the president of IUML’s Dalit wing, Indian Union Dalit League,  since 2003.