By TwoCircles.net Staff Correspondent,
Kochi: The Social Democratic Party of India has no relevance in Kerala, said PK Kunhalikkutty, state general secretary of the Muslim League. His response came in the press conference summoned in the wake of the victory of the UDF in the by-elections.
He said that the parties that came to oppose the Muslim League could not survive. The candidate of the LDF was gained by the contesting of SDPI, the political party of the Popular Front of India. No one can win talking about caste. The by-election results have proved that there is no existence for the religious-caste based factions. The victory is political and beyond religions. The abstinence of Jamat e Islami from the elections is one of the many reasons for the victory of the UDF. The results have proved that there is no relevance for parties outside the fronts, he added.
However, SDPI state president Adv KP Muhammed Shareef told TCN that even though the party had not gathered the expected number of votes, it did not mean it had no political future. The failure in the competition with alliances of many parties would never be a problem for the months-old party. He challenged that if any other party had contested alone without the support of the alliances, it would not have got even the votes won by the SDPI.
The SDPI wanted to unify the anti-government sentiments in the state into votes and for that it supported the UDF in Ernakulam and Alappuzha, he said. “We wanted to win in Kannur, but votes did not turn up as we expected. A major reason is the rumour spread the day before voting that the party had withdrawn its candidate and was supporting the UDF candidate. We did not get time to inform the people of the truth. Another reason for failure is the confusion of the people whether to vote for the newly-formed party or not. People are not against the party, but when a matter of choice came, they chose the experienced parties. Also, we got only around two weeks for campaign as we began it only after the filing of nomination on the last day. In addition, the media did not cover the election campaigns of the SDPI. All these might have influenced people.”
The SDPI, the political party formed by the PFI a few months ago, had contested in the Kannur constituency in the by-elections in Kerala. The party could gain only 3,411 votes which made it unable to regain even the deposit.