Young faces to fight it out in Angamaly
Angamaly was an agrarian economy earlier which is now partly replaced with remittances from NRIs.
KOCHI: Angamaly at the northern border of Ernakulam district is the soil which set the ground for the infamous Vimochana Samaram (Liberation Struggle) which went on to uproot the first Communist Ministry in the state of EMS Namboodiripad in 1959.
However, for the past 10 years, Angamaly’s heart has been on the Left side with Jose Thettayil winning two terms on Janata Dal ticket. He first uprooted P J Joy of Congress who reigned there for three terms for a long 15 years. In the last election Johny Nellore of Kerala Congress (Jacob) was defeated by Jose Thettayil.
Angamaly was an agrarian economy earlier which is now partly replaced with remittances from NRIs. It has eight panchayats and one municipality and four panchayats are ruled by UDF and the remaining four panchayats and one municipality are ruled by the LDF. With the Roman Catholics remaining the dominant community, the constituency maintains a tilt towards UDF though Jose Thettayil proved an aberration.
The group war in Congress has been the bane of the party in the constituency which led to it losing the Anagamly municipality to LDF in the last elections. In the Parliament elections to Chalakkudy Parliament constituency, Angamaly gave K P Dhanapalan of Congress a majority of 18,000 votes in 2009 while in 2014, for a defeated P C Chacko also it gave a lead of 5000 votes.
In this election Angamaly Assembly constituency Janata Dal (Secular) president Benny Moonjelly has replaced Jose Thettayil after a lot of drama while NSU (I) president Roji M John has come for his first election fight.
Benny is not anathema to the Church, having worked as parish council member and forane trustee while Roji who is not a native of Angamaly faces the ‘imported’ tag. Congress does not face fierce group fighting now since the leaders and workers are happy that their candidate has replaced Kerala Congress leader Johny Nellore.
The charity work done by him comes to the aid of the former Angamaly municipal chairman Benny Moonjely while the youth tag is the advantage of Roji, which makes it a tough fight.