Nearly five months after his son Anil Antony joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in an unexpected turn of events, Congress veteran AK Antony is facing off against his son in the Puthuppally constituency in Kerala on Friday, September 1, both campaigning for rival parties ahead of the bye-election on September 5. While AK Antony will hit the campaign trail for Oommen Chandy’s son Chandy Oommen, Anil would seek votes for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s Lijin Lal.
Antony, who is 83 years old, is scheduled to address two public meetings in the constituency, while Anil, apart from addressing corner meetings, would indulge in door-to-door electioneering. Taking everybody by surprise, Anil had switched over to the BJP this April and was recently elevated as the party’s national spokesperson.
Though the main fight in Puthuppally is between Chandy Oommen and Jaick C Thomas of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the BJP's agenda seems to be to test out how best they can perform in the constituency. Compared to the 2016 Assembly polls, the BJP’s vote share in the constituency had dropped by over 4,000 votes in 2021.
The interesting contest will reveal how many votes the father and son would be able to get to their respective party’s candidates. Antony is particularly keen for a resounding victory for the son of his closest aide and friend of more than six decades, Oommen Chandy, who passed away on July 18 in Bengaluru after a prolonged illness.
The bye-poll in Puthuppally constituency was necessitated following the demise of Oomen Chandy, who was its MLA since 1970. Notably, Oommen Chandy had seen his margin of victory come down from 27,092 votes at the 2016 polls to 9,044 votes at the 2021 polls. It was Jaick who contested and lost against the former Kerala Chief Minister on both occasions, though the Left front candidate saw a rise in his vote share by around 8% from 2016 to 2021.
With inputs from IANS