A trolley bag symbolises the intensity of Palakkad bypoll campaign

The commonplace travel bag’s appearance at a hotel frequented by politicians, mostly of Cong., in Palakkad prompted a midnight police raid for wads of illicit cash supposedly meant for election funding. The search yield no illicit money, leading to discomfiture in the LDF camp

A trolley bag has emerged as a metaphor for the sensationalist political processes influencing the byelection campaign in the Palakkad Assembly constituency.

Of all objects, the commonplace travel bag’s appearance at a hotel frequented by campaigning politicians in Palakkad prompted a midnight police raid for concealed wads of illicit cash supposedly meant for opaque election funding early Wednesday.

However, the dead-of-night raid appeared to have boomeranged on law enforcement and, by extension, the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF). The police conceded in writing that the inspections did not yield any black money.

Discomfitingly for the LDF, the police action provided grist to the Congress to claim that the police swoop on the hotel trespassed on the privacy of two senior women leaders, Shanimol Usman and Bindu Krishna.

Memes abound

The videos of uniformed officers and plainclothesmen rummaging through the overnight bags of the leaders, supposedly for black money, triggered street protests and mocking memes and trolls on social media.

The police’s failure to recover any illicit cash from hotel guests, a majority of them Congress politicians campaigning for the United Democratic Front (UDF) candidate, Rahul Mamkootathil, seemed to wrongfoot the LDF’s campaign in Palakkad.

The LDF ‘bag’

Nevertheless, the lack of proof did not deter LDF campaigners, including its Independent candidate P. Sarin, from lugging a blue trolley bag to public meetings as a trope for Congress’s alleged use of black money to subvert the byelection. Mr. Mamkootathil also displayed a similar bag at a press conference to paint a vivid and persuasive image of the LDF “using” the police to vilify him at the hustings.

The controversial trolley bag also prompted a war of words characterised by loud dares and challenges. CPI(M) State secretary M.V. Govindan dared Mr. Mamkootathil to undergo a lie detector test. 

Polygraph test

Mr. Mamkootathil expressed willingness to pick up the gauntlet if Local Self-Governments Minister M.B. Rajesh and DYFI State president M.A. Rahim, MP, would undergo the polygraph test.

Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan accused Mr. Rajesh of ordering the raid. Mr. Rajesh said the hotel’s surveillance camera footage was telling. 

An expelled Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader’s “admission” that he had handled significant amounts of illicit cash for the party during the 2021 Assembly elections has pushed invisible electioneering funds channelled through hawala networks to the forefront of the State’s political narrative in the run-up to the bypolls.

Published - November 07, 2024 07:21 pm IST