Shashi Tharoor pulled off a stupendous victory in the prestigious Thiruvananthapuram constituency which all exit polls and opinions polls had granted to BJP’s Kummanam Rajashekharan. The arrival of Kummanam after resigning as Mizoram Governor to contest the prestigious seat had galvanised the Sangh Parivar cadres and causing demoralisation in the Congress and LDF camps to a certain extent.
During the course of the campaign Tharoor experienced slackness on the part of a section of leaders and cadre. He alerted the High Command following which Nana Patole was sent to Thiruvanathapuram to monitor the campaign and that timely intervention worked.
Tharoor led in six of the seven Assembly segments; Kazhakootam, Vattiyoorkavu, Thiruvananthapuram, Parassala, Kovalam and Neyyattinkara. He secured a whopping 80,023 lead in the last three constituencies. Kummanam Rajashekharan secured lead in Nemom while C Divarakan could not get upper hand in any Assembly seat.
The fact that Tharoor secured a margin of more than 1 lakh votes upsetting all calculations of the BJP which was expecting to wrest the seat on the strength of Sabarimala issue. The performance of Tharoor as MP and his presence in the constituency through the year, brought him support cutting across socio- economic, religious and caste divide.
Hibi Eden breaks father’s record in constituency
Ernakulam upheld its tradition as UDF bastion with Congress’ young Turk and sitting MLA Hibi Eden winning by a record margin of 1,69,153 votes defeating the CPM’s experienced parliamentarian and former Rajya Sabha member P Rajeev. Hibi broke the record majority of 1.15 lakh votes of his father George Eden in 1999 elections. Hibi secured 4,91,263 while Rajeev got 3,22,110. NDA candidate Union Minister Alphons Kannanthanam got 1,37,749 votes. The constituency has 12,09,440 voters with 54,222 new voters.
Hibi has majority in all the seven constituencies including the Left strongholds like Vypeen, Tripunithura and Kochi. The thumping majority indicate that the strong swing factor in favour of the UDF seen across the state reflected in Ernakulam as well. Factors like Sabarimala, anti-incumbency against state government, and consolidation of minority votes which played as swing factor in other constituencies also influenced the landslide victory of Hibi. His development and other works including the post-flood reconstruction works as MLA in Ernakulam Assembly constituency also positively impacted the voters’ decision. In 2014 elections, when Aam Aadmi Party’s candidate Anita Pratap secured 5,15,17 votes, Congress’s Prof K.V. Thomas retained the seat by defeating LDF supported independent Christy Fernandez by a margin of 87047 votes.
Kodikunnil Suresh wins for third time in Mavelikara
Kodikunnil Suresh of the Congress secured a hat-trick win in Mavelikara defeating CPI's Chittayam Gopakumar by a margin of over 60,000 votes.
Kodikunnil had defeated Chengara Surendran of the CPI by a margin of 32,737 votes in 2014 and R.S. Anil of the CPI in 2009. This is the seventh time Kodikunnil is being elected as MP. He had won from the erstwhile Adoor constituency in 1989, 1991, 1996 and 1999.
Mavelikkara comprises seven Assembly segments, Kuttanad, Mavelikara, Chengannur, Changanassery, Kunnathur, Kottarakkara and Pathanapuram.
He told the media that the Sabarimala factor had helped him and that the voters had ignored the false campaigns against him. He was humbled by the mandate given by the people again, he added. The UDF candidates have mostly won from Mavelikara. The LDF defeated the UDF only in 2004 after 1989. Suresh, who entered the campaign trail late largely banked on his works and popularity in the constituency. Being the representative of the people for a decade, he is kown to each and every voter in the constituency spread over over Kottayam, Kollam and Alappuzha districts. NDA candidate Thazhava Sahadevan of Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) got 66,000 votes.
N K Premachandran overcomes determined CPM
Sitting MP N.K. Premachandran has made a blazing victory in Kollam with a huge margin of 1,49,772 votes after a fierce electoral battle that was also marked by acrimony. For Mr Premachandran, it was a fight to retain the sole seat his party has in a legislative body; for the CPM, it was an attempt to regain the seat Mr. Premachandran won by defeating its polit bureau member M.A. Baby in the last election.
With the current victory, Mr. Premachandran has become the fourth candidate to cross the margin of a lakh votes after by N. Sreekantan Nair of RSP in 1971 and 1977, and V. Parameswaran Nair of CPI in 1957. The CPM had won all the seven constituencies in the last assembly election but Mr Premachandran was ahead of Mr K.N. Balagopal, the CPM state secretariat member, in each one of them this time around. In Chavara, Mr. Premachandran made a lead of over 27,500 votes while it was over 20,000 votes in the coastal region of Eravimangalam. The LDF had won these two Assembly segments with huge margins last time. The image of an efficient parliamentarian and the developmental activities in the constituency including opening the second terminal of the railway station along with Kollam bypass helped Mr Premachandran get past Mr Balagopal, who too had made a name as member of the Rajya Sabha earlier.
During the fag end of the campaigning, Mr Premachandran had alleged that finance minister T. M. Thomas Isaac had hurled communal abuses against him. Mr Premachandran had come a Facebook live to deny the allegation that he was going soft on Hindutwa during his campaign and that he was using Sabarimala issue to divide the voters on communal lines. Mr Premachandran can now heave a sigh of relief that the voters chose to take his words on their face value.
Adoor Prakash wins, shocks A Sampath
It was complacency of the incumbent versus careful planning by the opponent in Attingal, and, Adoor Prakash the outsider who charted his course well got the better of A. sampath who was attempting a fourth win to the Lok Sabha in this election. It was a first after the 1989 victory of Thalekkunnil Basheer in Chirayeenkeezh that a Congress candidate gets to taste victory in the constituency which became Attingal after delimitation.
Mr Prakash, sitting MLA from Konni, was asked to contest from Attingal by Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala and AICC general secretary Oommen Chandy months before the election mode was on. The early invitation gave him the time to revitalise the party network in the constituency which never was a Congress stronghold. And it paid off well, too: he managed to get lead in all the seven Assembly constituencies. Critics say an over-confident Dr Sampath, who knew the nook and corner of the constituency and the voters by name, had not paid due attention to the development issues of constituency, especially the traffic chaos being experienced in Attingal.
BJP's firebrand woman leader Sobha Surendran put up her best performance by trying to cash in on the Sabarimala issue. But her only consolation is that she managed 2,46,502 votes against 90,528 BJP got last time.
Landslide victory for Benny Behanan
The landslide victory of Benny Behanan in Chalakkudy Lok Sabha constituency with a margin of 1,32,274 votes has come as a huge surprise for both UDF and LDF camps due to the record victory margin in the constituency. Benny’s victory margin has surpassed the one recorded by CPM’s Lonappan Nambadan in 2004 against Padmaja Venugopal of Congress in the height of Congress factionalism at 1,17,097 votes in the Mukundapuram Lok Sabha constituency, the predecessor of Chalakkudy Lok Sabha seat. Last time the image as a film actor came handy for Innocent which did not work this time. His shift to party symbol also seems to have not gone well down with the electorate. The Twenty20 factor also did not work against Benny Behnan this time around. The key factors that swept the state like Rahul wave, Sabarimala issue, and minority consolidation worked in favour of UDF in the constituency. BJP candidate A N Radhakrishnan polled 1,54,159 votes this time. In 2014, BJP had polled 92,848 votes while in 2009 it scored 45,367 votes.
In the 2016 Assembly elections, BJP polled 1,44,602 votes in seven Assembly segments put together.
Sabarimala fails to deliver as UDF’s Anto Antony trumps LDF, BJP
BJP faced a harrowing defeat in Pathanamthitta constituency, where the party expected to cash in on the Sabarimala issue, as Anto Antony of the UDF maintained the constituency with a vote margin of 44,613 votes securing 3,80,089 votes. LDF’s candidate and sitting MLA Veena George emerged runner up with 3,35,476 votes while BJP’s K. Surendran is in third position with 2,95,627 votes. It is the third term as Member of Parliament for Anto Antony. The open support by Poonjar MLA P.C. George also could not save Mr. Surendran.
In Poonjar Assembly segment, Surendran is in the third position as a result of apparent dissent by the people on Mr. George’s leaning towards the BJP. Mr. Surendran got only 30,990 votes while Mr. Anto Antony got 61,530 votes in Poonjar segment, a margin of over 30,000 votes. Adoor assembly segment favoured Ms. Veena George with 53,216 votes while K. Surendran is in the second place with a slight margin of 51,260 votes. UDF fared well in all assembly segments except Adoor while Veena George did not receive good support in her own Aranmula constituency with a lesser margin of over 6,000 votes than that of Anto Antony. The BJP that took advantage of the Sabarimala issue for election campaign could not anticipate the minority consolidation against the communal card in the constituency. It had no issues to raise but Sabarimala during the election campaigns, which was reaped by the UDF. It had also expected a sympathy wave for K. Surendran who faced the wrath of the LDF Government. The UDF took advantage of the Sabarimala issue conducting booth level campaigns alleging the CPM has disrespected the sentiments of Sabarimala devotees. To curb the BJP stride, the minority votes have also consolidated in favour of the sitting MP. The NSS votes in the constituency have also contributed to the victory of Mr. Anto Antony. Beyond these, the track record of the sitting MP reflects good in development of the constituency during the last ten years consisting of infrastructure development.
