As the sun dips below the horizon, the sky above Neerkunnam, a sleepy coastal village in the Alappuzha Lok Sabha constituency, with patchy clouds is bathed in golden hues. A cricket match on a vacant beachfront abruptly ends as youngsters rush towards the road, drawn by the blaring pronouncements of ‘darling of Alappuzha’ and ‘leader with a development vision’ from Left Democratic Front (LDF) candidate A.M. Ariff’s convoy.
Firecrackers erupt as the candidate, atop a Communist Party of India(Marxist)-emblazoned open vehicle, arrives. A slightly weary Mr. Ariff, after a day of campaigning under the sun, dismounts to a decent crowd, some sporting his printed T-shirts.
He waves and shakes hands with the people and heads straight to a makeshift stage where a microphone is handed over to him. “I first want to thank all those who voted for me in 2019, which helped the LDF to retake the Alappuzha Parliament constituency from the United Democratic Front (UDF). In the last five years, I strived to bring development to Alappuzha and succeeded in it. I raised the issues of the fisher community in the Parliament several times. To continue the development works and to preserve the secular fabric of the society, people should give me and the LDF a second term,” he says in the short speech.
