Guess who holds the record for the highest margin of victory in the history of Kerala's assembly polls?
It was the fifth assembly election for the record breaker who has won four and lost one so far.
Riding high on the praise she received for helping Kerala navigate the Covid-19 crisis as health minister, KK Shailaja, who was called a 'rock star' by The Guardian, won by 60,963 votes from Mattannur in 2021.
The LDF retained power, winning back-to-back elections, which was unprecedented in the state. However, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan chose to drop Shailaja from his ministry despite her facile win. The party explained the controversial move by claiming that it wanted new faces in the ministry apart from Pinarayi himself.
This time around too, Shailaja has faced another setback, with the LDF refusing to nominate her again from Mattannur despite her record win. Sources said the party’s policy for this election stipulates two-term limit for candidates in safe seats.
Noting that many other secretariat members have been shown greater consideration, Shailaja reportedly turned emotional at one point, asking “Why am I being singled out?”
However, she took it in her stride and offered to contest instead from Peravoor which has been a Congress stronghold since 2011 with the party's state president Sunny Joseph having won here three times in a row in 2011, 2016 and 2021.
Peravoor is not unfamiliar for Shailaja who has contested twice from here—winning in 2006 before losing to Joseph by 3,440 votes in 2011.
Joseph was unfazed by the prospect of taking on Shailaja again.
“Whoever be the LDF candidate, it’s certain that the UDF will win hands down. I’ve contested three elections here, two of them when the conditions favoured the LDF. The UDF’s performance in the Lok Sabha polls and local body polls, where we won most of the panchayats, shows our majority will only go up,” Sunny told TNIE.
The almost too-close-to-call fight in Eravipuram
At the other extreme is the lowest margin of victory in the Kerala assembly polls—a mere five votes.
The Revolutionary Socialist Party's (RSP) AA Azeez pulled off a win by that slender margin from Eravipuram in 2001.
Initially, Azeez's victory margin was 21 votes. But his opponent TA Ahammed Kabeer of the Indian Union Muslim League approached the Kerala High Court and eventually the margin of victory was whittled down to five votes.
Aziz won again from here in 2006 by 25000 votes and 2011 by over 8000 votes.
However, in 2014, the RSP decided to switch sides, moving from the LDF to the UDF.
The move backfired with Aziz losing to the CPM's M Noushad in 2016.
Noushad won again in 2021, defeating another RSP candidate Babu Divakaran.