V. Sasi of the Communist Party of India (CPI), who has gone down in the electoral history as the first to represent the Chirayinkeezhu reserved constituency after its birth in 2011, is locked in a tri-cornered contest to retain the Assembly segment, the electorate of which largely consists of coir workers, who are traditionally Left-oriented.
Mr. Sasi, a former member of the Travancore Devaswom Board and a former chairman of the Farm Workers Welfare Fund Board, defeated Congress candidate K. Vidhyadharan by a margin of 12,225 votes in 2011.
In the upcoming polls, the Congress has fielded Ajith Kumar, former president of the Mangalapuram grama panchayat, which forms part of the constituency. The Bharatiya Janata Party, which supported Aithiyoor Surendran, an Independent in the last polls, is fielding party State vice president P. P Vava, following the gains it made in certain panchayats in the last local body elections. The party candidate Girija Kumari S. polled 8,377 votes from the segment in the Lok Sabha elections.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, LDF candidate A. Sampath established a majority of 11,482 votes over UDF candidate Bindhu Krishna in Chirayinkeezhu. The party continued the momentum in the local body polls by winning five grama panchayats and one block panchayat.
At least six panchayats in the segment have a sizeable number of coir workers. Community wise, the constituency has a heavy concentration of Christian population in the three coastal panchayats. The crisis in the coir industry is certain to impact the voting pattern.
