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This reporter attempted to track down Elsie amma to see what she feels about the disqualification only to learn that she passed away six months ago. Meanwhile, a very lively 99-year old Matthew was spotted cackling, trying to contain it by covering his mouth with his palm.
He gave up after a while and asked: ”Will you find enough people to carry these?” He was referring to the stacked kerosene-soaked cloth bound around bamboo sticks, to be used as torches, at the district Congress committee office at Kalpetta in Wayanad on Sunday evening. On the third day after Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification from the Wayanad seat, Youth Congress was organising a night march. Mattthew, who stays nearby, had dropped by to watch. Yes, he is a Congress sympathiser who had his share of protests – he narrated with glee how he threw stones at a police station long, long ago during one.
But he was not convinced that people in Wayanad are invested so much that they would come on a day so sacrosanct that most locals refuse to work even if you pay them twice the wage. To make things worse, on the other end of the district, at Mananthavady, was Wayanad’s most famous all-night festival being organised by Valliyoorkkavu temple, the annual 14-day arattu festival. There’s also the Ramadan fasting. Matthew has a point: If you stop people on the street in any part of Wayanad, and ask what you think of the disqualification, more often than not, people express outrage. But then they get on with their lives, implicitly understanding that the battle is being fought elsewhere. This sentiment was also expressed by Sreeja, a municipal Councillor for Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and daughter-in-law of Elsie amma.
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