Kalpetta: Will Congress president Rahul Gandhi prove to be the messiah of Wayanad who will deliver the backward constituency from its many ills? That is the million-dollar question being raised by the voters who are enthused by the presence of the VIP candidate in their midst. Wayanad has a long list of woes that remain to be addressed in case Rahul manages to stitch up a government at the centre.
The district has three legislative segments – Kalpetta, Mananthavadi and Sulthan Bathery – and the Parliament constituency covers parts of Kozhikode and Malappuram districts.
Wayanad’s economy has been hit hard by the night traffic ban imposed ten years ago on NH 766 (Kollegal - Kozhikode NH) and NH 67 (Gundelpett-Ooty road), both passing through the Bandipur wildlife sanctuary.
According to T.M. Rasheed, convener of the Nilgiri-Wayanad National Highway and Railway Action Council, this issue can be solved if Rahul assumes power at the centre. The ban orders were passed by the Chamaraj Nagar district collector Manoj Kumar Meena of Karnataka on June 3, 2009. “The order affected students, professionals, patients and traders who regularly visited Karnataka by travelling at night and reached Bangalore in the morning,” he said.
Another major issue is the crash in the prices of pepper due to the trade policies of the NDA regime. Senior Congress leader from Wayanad, K.C. Rosakkutti, said, “the last five years have witnessed a crash in the prices of spices and other crops across the nation. The pepper price that was `670 per kg in December 2016 tumbled down to `375 in December 2017 and touched `280 soon,” she said. This was caused by the import of cheap Vietnam pepper through illegal trade channels,” she added.
The district was formed on November 1, 1980, but it lacks a state-of- the-art health care centre. The construction of a medical college is caught up in legal wrangles. Patients have to travel to Kozhikode, Mysore or Bengaluru for expert healthcare.
The Wayanad ghat road connecting Wayanad with the planes is threatened during the rains by landslides forcing the people to take circuitous routes during emergencies.
All these and other long-pending developmental issues will get a strong push if Rahul is elected, according to his supporters.
But the LDF has rubbished the notion of Rahul bringing any change to the situation by pointing out the condition of his pocket-borough-Amethi- which lacks modern amenities.
Kalpetta MLA C.K. Saseendran said on Wednesday that Amethi does not have proper roads, hospitals and schools and that the developmental index is much lower than that of Wayanad.
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