CHENGANNUR: The victory for the LDF came amid fears in the Left camp that the reports of the murder of Dalit Christian Kevin P Joseph on voting day would affect public sentiment in favour of the UDF.
Meanwhile, Vijayakumar alleged a nexus between the CPM and the BJP. He also demanded the Congress leadership to probe what went wrong and how the UDF lost an upper hand in its traditional strongholds.
Senior Congress leader and former CM Oommen Chandy termed the outcome as unexpected.
Conceding defeat, BJP candidate Sreedharan Pillai accused the Congress of shifting its votes in favour of the Left candidate.
The election was necessitated following the death of CPM MLA K K Ramachandran Nair.
Curiously, the LDF victory has also vindicated the stance taken by the CPI and veteran leader V S Achuthanandan in the K M Mani fiasco. Both had insisted the Left does not need the support of the KC(M) to win. “The LDF victory has once again proven that Left does not need Mani’s support,” said Achuthanandan.