Shafi Parambil's victory silences noise, accusations fade away

KOZHIKODE: After long accusations and counter-accusations from campaigning to counting of votes, the final verdict of Vadakara is in favour of Shafi Parambil. A majority of 1,14, 506 votes against CPM's strong leader K K Shailaja.

The decline of CPM in Vadakara started with the murder of T P Chandrasekaran. Vadakara, where CPM's P. Sathi Devi, won with a margin of about 1,30,000 votes has turned to the right since 2009. Last time K. Muralidharan won a majority of 84,663 votes. Despite taking all the arrows in the quiver to account for 15 years, the CPM fell. Apart from KK Shailaja, CPM did not have any qualified candidate to contest in Vadakara. CPM did not have any other calculation other than to win back the constituency when it fielded Shailaja, who was also the MLA of Mattannur, who emerged as the health minister.

Vadakara was the constituency which was discussed since the announcement of elections. It continued with accusations, counter-accusations and obscene video controversy. Even after the polls, the verbal abuse and counter arguments did not end. Finally, Shafi emerged victorious by blowing away all the allegations. Shafi responded that the victory was Vadakara's answer to all the issues raised against him, including the Kafir controversy.