The election challenge will pale in front of the struggle that young Sobha Subin has faced growing up.

Sobha, the Congress candidate making a strong pitch in the Left bastion of Kaipamangalam in Thrissur district, has long attracted attention for the unusual name for a man. The 35-year-old Kerala Youth Congress general secretary was named after his mother who was killed by his father.

Sobha was just eight months old when his mother was killed and his father landed in jail for the crime. With no one to take care of him, Sobha’s maternal aunt Omana and maternal uncle Subramanian, a fisherman, took up guardianship. While Omana didn’t marry, Subramanian married when Sobha was 13 years old.

“My father’s family had originally named me Shalabhan. But my aunt and uncle gave me my mother’s name, which kept her so close to me although I don’t have any memory of her,” Sobha told The Telegraph on Tuesday.

While Omana worked as a domestic help to ensure little Sobha received proper education, the boy started pitching in by delivering newspapers when he was in Class VIII, cleaning dishes at beachside eateries, working at a scrapyard and eventually going fishing in the sea with his uncle to supplement the family income.

But the unusual name for a boy did make him the butt of jokes among schoolmates. “Children always made fun of me and often called me a girl. But eventually I overcame such taunts since I felt my mother was with me due to my name. So I insisted that everyone call me Sobha (and not just Subin),” he said.

Sobha admitted that life often reminded him of being an orphan although his aunt and uncle had fended for him. “I used to cry when I saw the other kids with their parents and how they attended school events and signed progress report cards.”

Sobha reaches out to a fisherman at Vanchipura in Thrissur district. As a youngster, Sobha had taken to fishing to support his family. Telegraph picture

When Sobha was in third standard his father obtained parole. “He came and met me and gave me Rs 10. I ran to my maternal grandmother and told her about it. But I got a mouthful from her. She then threw the money into our firewood stove and told me I had no father,” he said.

Sobha’s father has since re-married and lives with his wife and three children. “I am not in touch with him,” Sobha said.

Although he had stepped into student politics with the Congress-affiliated Kerala Students’ Union during his days at SN College in Nattika, Thrissur, Sobha knew it was time to earn a livelihood and support his uncle and aunt.

“Like a lot of youngsters, I too went to meet M.A. Yusuf Ali when he came to Thrissur,” Sobha said, referring to the UAE-based tycoon who owns the Lulu group of supermarkets in the Gulf.

“He was impressed with me when I told him I was a graduate and immediately offered me a job (at a Lulu supermarket). But after working for three years I yearned to return home and join politics and pursue LLB,” Sobha said.

In his only stint away from family and politics, Sobha worked at the Lulu Hypermarket in the upscale Dubai neighbourhood of Al Barsha between 2007 and 2010.

“In just a few months I realised life in Dubai for me was like a fish out of water. Life was limited to my workplace and home. Since the company had spent a lot on my visa and residence permit I decided to stick on for the course of its three-year validity and then moved back to my native place.”

On returning to Thrissur, Sobha wrote the entrance test for LLB and eventually joined Government Law College in Thrissur. It was there that he met his life partner, K.M. Reshma, whom he married in August 2017. The couple have a seven-month-old daughter.

“We named her Sobha Zia Fathima — Sobha being my mother’s name and Fathima being my mother-in-law,” he said.

Busy with his gruelling campaign schedule, Sobha has his eyes fixed on winning the seat. “I have never lost in any of the four elections I have contested so far (three of them for college unions). So I am sure I can pull this one off,” he said.

In the 2016 Kerala Assembly polls, the CPI’s E.T. Taison Master had won the Kaipamangalam seat by over 33,000 votes against M.T. Mohammed Nahas of the RSP, a partner in the Congress-led United Democratic Alliance. But Sobha is sure of winning this time. He is up against Taison Master and the BJP’s C.D. Sreelal.