I can be the MP who will be with the people right through: Annie Raja

Wayanad

On a sweltering day in Wayanad, around 40 people assemble in Vaduvanchal. A group of men, with white handkerchiefs over their heads, stand near a metal roundabout, facing a makeshift podium some 100 metres in front of them. A group of women, some clad in sarees with a horizontal, thin line of sandal paste on their foreheads, some in burkhas, take refuge under the shade under a massive speaker. They stand there with conviction as they gaze at the podium, listening to a few local communist leaders talk to them about the Citizenship Amendment Act, electoral bonds, and so much more. Posters that read ‘Vote for Comrade Annie Raja’ hang around the podium and the walls near it.

Suddenly, a man picks up a few red flags with ‘Hammer and Sickle’, the symbol of the Communist Party of India, and moves towards a road where a white Toyota Innova halts. The crowd follows him swiftly. As Annie Raja opens the front door of the car and gets down, they surround her, waiting for an opportunity to shake hands with her. She doesn’t disappoint, as she gracefully does, and she marches with them towards the podium.

A senior leader of the CPI, Raja is the Left Democratic Front’s 2024 General Election candidate from Wayanad, where she will face Congress scion Rahul Gandhi, the incumbent MP from the constituency, and the BJP’s K Surendran. “The current BJP government now targets Muslims. Christians will be next in line, and then everyone who is not a Brahman, said Raja, adding, “If elected to power, I promise to be with you throughout here,” says Raja, taking a subtle dig at Gandhi, who allegedly visited Wayanad only nine times since being elected.

A senior leader of the CPI, Annie Raja is the Left Democratic Front’s 2024 General Election candidate from Wayanad, where she will face Congress scion Rahul Gandhi | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

“I have been hearing a lot of complaints about how the current MP is inaccessible. The people here deserve better, an MP who will be with them throughout. I can be that,” she later tells businessline, on the way to her next campaign location. At 58, Raja is five years older than Gandhi. Born in a communist family in Northern Kerala, she entered politics through the All India Students Federation (AISF), CPI’s student wing. She later went on to work for the AIYF and CPI and heads the National Federation of Indian Women. However, this is Raja’s first election. “For us Communists, politics isn’t just fighting elections. It’s just a part of it. Until now, I had organisational responsibilities. Now, my party gave me a new responsibility, and I happily took it up. If I get elected, my role will be to represent my people and speak up for them in Parliament,” she says.

The Left and Congress are allies in the INDIA bloc, while they fight each other in some States like Kerala. Quizzed about that, Raja said, “We are in an alliance to fight fascism, but from early on, we had an understanding that we will fight as the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala.” However, Raja doesn’t hesitate to express her exasperation at Gandhi’s decision to face the polls again from Wayanad. “There are States like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Telangana where the Left and Congress are allies. The leaders there wanted him to fight from there, but he chose Wayanad again. If Congress was hell-bent on having him as an MP, he could have faced the polls from any of these places. Now I begin to wonder if Gandhi takes the fight against fascism so lightly,” she said.

At the same time, she dismisses Gandhi as a ‘big name’ in Indian politics. “During elections, the Kings and Queens are people. We are confident that they are convinced how important we are to them and how this government is trying to build a Brahmanical society,” she says, coming down heavily on the Modi government for implementing the CAA, keeping the wages for NREGA low, not assuring MSP to the protesting farmers, and the electoral bonds issue. “It is dacoity in daylight. The Modi government donned corruption in law’s clothes, and now the common man is aware of that too. We are also spreading more awareness on this issue while campaigning,” she says, adding, “The government is only interested in horse-trading and arresting opposition leaders. They have done nothing for the common man.”