Comrade VS leads the charge

Jameela, a young girl who runs an internet cafe in Edakkara, a small town in North Kerala, on Thursday morning informed her customers that they would have to stick to a deadline for the day — the customers could surf the net “till VS comes”.

An avid fan of “Comrade VS”, Jameela was only one among the thousands of admirers in the neighbourhood who had gathered braving the scorching summer heat at the dust-filled rally ground to hear the veteran CPI(M) leader speak.

Velikkakathu Sankaran Achuthanandan or simply VS for his ardent admirers was scheduled to reach the venue at 10.30 am but arrived well past noon. The crowd waited patiently till the Kerala Chief Minister and the lead campaigner for the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front finished his speech around 1.45 pm.

For the 87 year-old communist leader, this was his second speech of the day and if his supporters were to be believed who would believe that he was reportedly denied an assembly seat on health grounds during the initial phase of candidate selection by his party.

The denial had seen spontaneous protests from across state unit workers and suppoters of the Left, who saw this as a result of intra-party rivalry. The protests had its result, as was witnessed in the enthusiastic response Achutanandan received in his campaign points like Edakkara.

Energising well over 5,000-odd listeners, Achutananthan moved on to his next destination after a brief lunch break at Perintalmanna — the native village of the first communist chief minister of Kerala E M S Nampoodiripad.

The lunch, followed by a short nap and a routine medical check-up, Achutanandan was ready for his next speech. In Perintalmanna, artery roads were choked as people thronged to hear the man who was drawing crowds bigger than any other leader of similar stature in the Opposition Congress-led front.

A typical Achutanandan speech invites laughter, frequent bouts of whistles and applauses from his followers due to his colloquial (considered archiac by his foes) way of speech. The narrative technique, with words taking long and short sound forms than usual, is unique.

Achutanandan began his Perintalmanna speech by voicing his preference of Indira Gandhi over her daughetr-in-law Sonia Gandhi. He said the former had taken “nationalistic” decisions, while Sonia presides over Congress Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s “liberalisation” policies.

He also launched a salvo on former telecom minister Raja over the spectrum allocation scam and narrowed down to scams and corruption cases in Kerala politics.

The siren of an ambulance interrupted his speech and Achutanandan was quick to plead with the crowd to make way for a medical emergency — another gesture that invited wide applause from his admirers.

Before the CM could conclude his speech, the crowd had started to disperse, compelling the LDF candidate to wrap up his ‘request for vote’ within minutes. Achutanandan’s convoy sped past his larger-than-life size images on the roadside to address three more gatherings before he would call off the day’s campaign.

In 14 days, with five such events a day on an average, Achutanandan has coverd the length and breadth of the state. He will tour Ernakulam and Wayanad before moving back to his own constituency Malampuzha in Palakkad district before the voting day on April 13.

Achutanandan is undoubtedly the celebrity campaigner in this election, but then elections cannot be gauged by mere road shows.