‘David’ returns to take on ‘Goliath’s’ son in key Kerala bypoll

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 11

With the name of Jaick C. Thomas more or less cleared as the CPI-M candidate for the Puthupally Assembly by-election by the party's state Secretariat and only the official announcement to come, the stage is set for a reprise of the 2016 'David vs Goliath' contest, though it will be 'Goliath's son" opposite him.

The 2016 contest was pegged as a "David Vs Goliath" contest when the CPI-M chose Thomas, then a 25-year-old student leader, as a surprise choice against sitting Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, the powerful son of the soil who had been a legislator from Puthupally since 1970.

But unlike the Biblical result when the gioant Goliath, was killed by youth David with a slingshot, in 2016, the David at Puthupally failed.

In the 2021 assembly polls, it was a repeat of the 2016 contest and again the senior Chandy prevailed, but had to struggle as his margin of victory was below 10,000 votes.

As Thomas’s name is officially announced, he will figure in record books to be one of the very few to have contested against a father and son besides creating hash tag ‘David returns to take on Goliath’s son’.