BJP blanked out; UDF wins 3 seats, ruling LDF wins 2 seats in Kerala bypolls

Thiruvananthapuram: The Congress-led UDF tasted defeat at the hands of the ruling LDF headed by the CPI-M in its strongholds of Vattiyoorkavu and Konni, while it retained two seats and won from the Marxist bastion of Aroor in the October 21 by-polls to five assembly seats in Kerala.

The BJP was blanked out.

Thiruvananthapuram Mayor V K Prasanth won from Vattiyoorkavu by a margin of over 14,465 votes against his nearest Congress rival K Mohankumar.

While Prasanth polled 54,830 votes, K Mohankumar bagged 40,365 votes and BJP’s S Suresh garnered 27,453 votes.

Vattiyoorkavu was held by senior congress leader K Muraleedharan for two terms since 2011 when the constituency was formed.

Another UDF bastion, Konni, went to the LDF kitty with its candidate K U Jenish Kumar winning by 9,953 votes.

Jenish Kumar bagged 54,099 votes against P Mohanraj (Cong) who got 44,146 votes. BJP’s K Surendran managed to poll 39,786 votes. Konni was represented by congress leader and former minister Adoor Prakash since 1996.

However, the LDF tasted defeat at Aroor, a CPI(M) stronghold where UDF’s Shanimol Usman, who had unsuccessfully contested the April Lok Sabha poll from Alappuzha, won with a margin of 2079 votes.

Shanimol Usman won the seat defeating her nearest rival Manu C Pulickal of the LDF by a margin of 2,079 votes.

She polled 69,356 votes while Pulickal 67,277 votes. BJP candidate Prakash Babu bagged only 16,289 votes.

The UDF won the Manjeshwaram seat where M C Kamaruddin (IUML) won by a margin of 7,923 votes against BJP’s Raveesh Thanthri Kuntar. While Kamaruddin polled 65,407 votes, Thantri got 57,484 votes.

The LDF candidate Shankara Rai (CPI-M), who was pushed to the third position, could bag only 38,233 votes.

The UDF retained the Ernakulam seat as its candidate T J Vinod, deputy Mayor of Kochi corporation, defeated his nearest rival advocate Manu Roy, the LDF-Independent candidate by over 3,750 votes.

Vinod had polled 37,891 votes, while Manu Roy garnered 34,141 votes.

Manu Roy’s namesake managed to poll 2572 votes, while the consituency also got the maximum NOTA votes of 1309.

While by-elections were held to Vattiyoorkavu, Konni, Aroor and Ernakulam constituencies as sitting MLAs successfully contested to the Lok Sabha, in Manjeshwaram, the death of sitting IUML MLA, Abdul Razak, necessitated the by-poll.

The defeat at Vatiyoorkavu and Konni comes as a rude shock for the UDF which had won 19 of the 20 Lok Sabha seats in the Lok Sabha polls in May this year.

In the recent Pala bypoll also, the front suffered defeat at the hands of LDF as the Kerala Congress (M) stronghold went to the left front after 50 years.

Following the bypoll outcome, the LDF’s strength has now gone up to 93, while that of UDF 45 in the 140 member house.

The BJP has a lone member while P C George is an independent candidate. The House also has nominated member of the Anglo Indian community.