Kerala Election Results 2016: The CPI(M)-led LDF today returned to power in Kerala getting a comfortable majority dealing a huge blow to the ruling Congress-led UDF while BJP created history making its debut. In the 140-member assembly, LDF won 91 seats, UDF 47, BJP and Independents, one each.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi called up Marxist Veteran V S Achuthanandan and congratulated him for the LDF’s resounding victory.
Immediately after the poll results were out, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who will be submitting his resignation tomorrow, said the poll outcome was a “setback” and they had not expected such a defeat.
Elated over the victory, 92-year-old Achuthanandan, who spearheaded the LDF campaign, said it was an LDF wave and the victory was a reflection on the anger of the people on the “corrupt and anti-people policies of the UDF government”.
CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Pinarayi Vijayan said the victory was an acceptance of LDF’s development policies. The result also proved that people had rejected the “communal and divisive” forces.
He also alleged that BJP was able to open its account due to Congress help.
In the Left Democratic Front (LDF) camp, CPI(M) won 58 seats, CPI 19, Kerala Congress(B), CMP, RSP (L) and Congress (S) one each, JDS 3, NCP 2 and party backed independents 5.
Of the 47 seats won by the United Democratic Front (UDF), Congress won 22 seats, Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) 18, Kerala Congress (Mani) 6, Kerala Congress (Jacob) one.
BJP’s O Rajagopal, a former Union minister in the A B Vajpayee government, helped the saffron party to make its entry into Kerala assembly by winning the Nemom seat here.
Significantly, P C George, a former Kerala Congress (M) rebel leader, who contested independently from Poonjar, won by 27,821 votes, surprising even his worst critics.
UDF partners– RSP and JDU, which contested 5 and 7 seats respectively were routed in the polls.
Similarly, 4 leaders, who walked out of the Kerala Congress (Mani) of the UDF and formed a new party called ‘Democratic Kerala Congress’ and allied with LDF, had to bite the dust as they lost all the four seats they contested.
Though BJP managed to win a seat, its key ally BDJS (Bharat Dharma Jana Sena), a party floated by the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP), an organisation of the backward Ezhava community, failed to win a single seat of the 37 seats it contested.
BJP’s state President Kummanam Rajasekharan, former Presidents, V Muraleedharan, P S Sreedharan Pillai, C P Padmanabhan and P K Krishnadas, party general secretary K Surendran, and firebrand woman leader Shobha Surendran were all defeated.
However, party candidates came second in seven constituencies.
Cricketer Sreesanth, who also contested in the BJP ticket from Thiruvananthapuram, bit the dust at the hustings.
Achutanandan, the face of the LDF campaign and Pinarayi Vijayan, Thomas Issac, E P Jayarajan and actor Mukesh are among the prominent winners in the LDF.
While Chandy, former Finance Minister K M Mani, who had to resign in the backdrop of bar bribery allegations, were among those who survived the LDF onslaught, four of his cabinet colleagues, K Babu, who also was under the cloud of bar scam, Shibu Baby John (RSP), K P Mohanan (JDU), P K Jayalakshmi (Congress) fell by the wayside.
Speaker N Shakthan, Deputy Speaker Palode Ravi and Congress leaders K Sudhakaran, Pandalam Sudhakaran, Padmaja Venugopal and Shanimol Osman and former minister Dominic Presentation were among the prominent losers in the UDF camp.
UDF managed to win 12 seats in Malappuram, the stronghold of IUML, its key partner and also in Ernakulam, where it won nine seats.
LDF made massive inroads in Thrissur, Kannur, Kozhikode, Kollam, Alapuzha and Thiruvananthapuram districts by capturing maximum seats.
In Thrissur, out of 13 constituencies, all except one went to LDF. In Kollam all 10 seats were won by LDF.
Minor clashes erupted between CPI(M), BJP and IUML workers in various parts of Kannur and Kasaragod districts in North Kerala soon after the LDF victory and one person was killed when a country bomb was hurled at a LDF victory rally in Pinarayi in Kannur.
In the run up to the election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comparison of Kerala with Somalia had hurt the Malayalee pride and Congress President Sonia Gandhi made an emotional reply to Modi’s remarks on her Italian roots.
People have rejected ‘corrupt’ UDF govt: Karat
CPI(M) leader Prakash Karat today said the “big” win for Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Kerala was due to the people of the state having rejected the “corrupt” United Democratic Front government.
“LDF has registered a big victory in Kerala because the people have endorsed a platform for a corruption-free government. The people have rejected the UDF government, its misrule and corruption,” the former CPI(M) General Secretary said.
Karat said the party’s Kerala unit is likely to meet tomorrow and hold discussions on who will be the next chief minister of the state.
Party veteran V S Achuthanandan and politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan, both of whom have won, are in the race for the CM’s post.
Rajagopal scripts history, BJP makes a debut in Kerala
Scripting a new chapter for the BJP in Kerala, party veteran and former union minister O Rajagopal today won from Nemom constituency here to help the party make its debut in the state assembly.
Nemom was one of the segments where the BJP had pinned its hope the most in the present election to open its account in the Assembly.
Rajagopal, who had lost by a narrow margin in previous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, wrested Nemom from sitting MLA and vibrant CPI(M)-LDF leader V Sivankutty defeating him by 8,671 votes
When many of his party colleagues were trailing, Rajagopal, former Union Minister in the A B Vajpayee government, maintained a clear lead since the beginning itself.
The historic victory is a sweet revenge for Rajagopal, as he had lost in the constituency in a photo finish to Sivankutty in the 2011 assembly polls.
Garnering 43,661 votes, he had come second to Sivankutty last time. He had also garnered 50,076 votes in Nemom against Congress’s Shashi Tharoor who got 32,639 in the last Lok Sabha elections.
In the last civic polls, of the total 22 wards in Nemom, BJP and LDF got nine seats each and UDF four.
