By Najiya O, TwoCircles.net
Malappuram: With all the 20 ministers having taken oath in Kerala, the new UDF government is in force in the state. And eight of the ministers hail from Malabar, the northern and backward region of the state comprising of the districts of Kasargode, Kannur, Wayanad, Kozhikode, Malappuram and Palakkad. Though ministers are not anything new to it, Malabar is still hoping that the new ministers will help improve its lot.
Among the eight minister of Malabar four are from Malappuram in which Muslims form majority of the population. The ministers are PK Kunjalikkutty and PK Abdurabb of the Muslim League, and Aryadan Muhammed and AP Anil Kumar of the Congress. Kunjalikkutty is the Minister of Industries and IT, and is second only to the Chief Minister in the government. PK Abdurabb has the charge of Education in his debut entry into the state ministry. Senior Congress leader Aryadan Muhammed has the Electricity department and AP Anil Kumar is the Minister of Tourism and Culture.
Dr MK Muneer
Dr MK Muneer, minister of panchayats, is the only minister form Kozhikode district. KC Joseph of the Congress and KP Mohanan of the Socialist Janatha (Democratic) Party are the ministers from Kannur district. Congress’s PK Jayalakshmi, the lone female MLA of the UDF, is the minister of scheduled tribe welfare.
Malabar has sent a total of 60 representatives to the state Assembly, among who 32 are from the UDF (INC – 11, ML – 19, SJ (D) – 2). The UDF has two MLAs in Kasargode, five in Kannur, three in Wayanad, three in Kozhikode, five in Palakkad and 14 in Malappuram.
PK Kunjalikkutty
Muslim League general secretary PK Kunjalikkutty is the most important and powerful among the ministers from Malabar. Born in 1951 as the son of Mohammed Haji and KP Pathummakkutty in Malappuram, Kunjalikkutty is a graduate in Commerce and diploma holder in Business Management. Called by people as Kunjappa, he entered politics through the Muslim League’s students’ wing MSF (Muslim Students Federation) and later became its state treasurer. He has also served as chairman of the Malappuram Municipality. This is his sixth term in the Kerala Assembly, the earlier terms being in 1982 and 1987 from Malappuram, and in 1991, 1996 and 2001 from Kuttippuram constituencies. He has led the departments of industries, IT, social welfare and municipalities in the two UDF ministries from 1991 to 2005. He had to resign as Minister of Industries, IT and Social Welfare from the Oommen Chandy Ministry in January 2005 following allegations of his involvement in the ice-cream parlour sex scandal. For the first time, he failed to make it to the Assembly in 2006 when former Muslim League leader KT Jaleel, who contested as LDF independent candidate, defeated him from Kuttippuram. Kunjalikkutty won in the 2011 Assembly elections with the second-largest majority (38,237 votes’ majority) in the state from Vengara against INL’s KP Ismail.
PK Abdurabb
PK Abdurabb has become the new Education Minister of the state in his third stint in the Assembly. Born in 1958 as the son of former Deputy Chief Minister and Muslim League leader K Avukkader Kutty Naha and Kunhibiriyam Umma at Parappanangadi in Malappuram, Abdurabb is a postgraduate in English Literature. He was elected to the Assembly in 1996, 2001 and 2006. He has earlier served as the president of the Parappanangadi Village Panchayat. He was the sitting MLA of Manjeri when the party decided to field him in Tirurangadi in this election. He fulfilled the party’s dream winning by a majority of 30,208 votes against Adv KK Samad of the CPI.
Aryadan Muhammed is a senior Congress leader and the supremo of the party in Malappuram district. Born in 1935 as the son of Unneen and Kadiyamunni, Aryadan entered politics as a Congress member in 1952. A member of the KPCC since 1958, he has served as KPCC general secretary, Malappuram DCC president and Kozhikode DCC secretary in various times, in addition to heading various labour unions. He got elected to the Kerala Assembly for the first time in 1977. He won from Nilambur in a by-election held in 1980 and ever since he has represented the constituency in the Assembly. Though the Muslim minister from the Congress, this is reportedly the first time that Aryadan took oath in God’s name. Proclaiming himself as a secularist, he uses to voice against the ‘terrorism among Muslims’. In the present Assembly elections, he won from Nilambur against Thomas Mathew, an independent supported by the LDF.
Aryadan Muhammed
AP Anil Kumar is the Minister of Tourism and Culture. Born in 1965 in Malappuram, Anil Kumar entered politics through the KSU, students’ wing of the Congress. He soon rose to be the state general secretary of the Kerala Youth Congress. He was first elected to the 11th Assembly from Wandoor. In the UDF government headed by Oommen Chandy from 2004-06, he was the Minister in charge of the welfare of backward and scheduled communities, youth and cultural affairs, museum and zoo, archives and archaeology. In the 2011 Assembly elections, he won from Wandoor against V Ramesan of the CPI (M).
Dr MK Muneer is the Minister of Panchayats in the present government. Born in 1962 as the son of former Chief Minister CH Muhammed Koya and Amina, Muneer entered politics through the MSF and rose through the Youth League. He was first elected to the 9th Assembly from Kozhikode II constituency, which is now the Kozhikode South constituency which he represents now. He represented Malappuram in the 10th and 11th Assemblies. He has served as the Minister of Public Works in the last UDF government from 2001 to 2005. Muneer is presently one of the secretaries of the Muslim League. He was the chairman of ‘Indiavision’, the first Malayalam news channel in Kerala, since its launch till 2011, when he resigned the post prior to becoming a minister. He had been criticised in the party for not stepping down from the channel even when the channel broadcast new against the party and its general secretary PK Kunjalikkutty. Though basically a medical practitioner, Muneer has marked his presence in various fields such as cartoon, painting, singing, acting etc, besides politics. He has published a book ‘Fascisavum Sangh Parivarum’ (Fascism and Sangh Parivar). In the 2011 elections, he defeated CP Musaffar Ahammed of the CPI (M) in the Kozhikode South constituency for a majority of a mere 1376 votes.
A P Anilkumar
PK Jayalakshmi of the Congress is the lone female member of the government and the lone female MLA of the 72-strong UDF team in the Assembly. She is the representative of Mananthavady in Wayanad where she defeated KC Kunhiraman of the CPI (M) for a majority of more than 13000 votes. A graduate in Functional English, Jayalakshmi entered politics through the Youth Congress. She became a member of the Thavinjal Panchayat in the last Panchayat elections. She was presented the national award for the best Panchayat Member for her commendable implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. She has also created history as the state’s first ever minister from the tribal community and as the youngest minister at the age of 29.
PK Jayalakshmi
Congress’s KC Joseph is the Minister in charge of rural development, registration and public relations. He won from Irikkur in Kannur district against Adv P Santhosh Kumar of the CPI. KP Mohanan of the Socialist Janatha (Democratic) Party is the Minister in charge of agriculture, animal husbandry and dairy development. He is the MLA of Koothuparambu in Kannur, where he defeated SA Puthiyavalappil of the INL.
Malabar and especially Malappuram have seen several ministers in the past governments in the state, including Chief Ministers like EK Nayanar of the LDF from Kannur and CH Muhammed Koya of the (Muslim League) UDF from Kozhikode. Representatives of Malabar have decorated ministries in the central government also like the present Minister of State for External Affairs Mr E Ahmed. But despite all these, Malabar remains backward in education, industries and health facilities etc. The various governments that came and went did not give as much to Malabar as they did to the southern districts, be it in education, industries or anything else. Malabar has always hoped its destiny would turn bright. And it is hoping now also that the new eight ministers may turn out to be its saviours.