KOCHI: Though the waterlogging due to heavy rain on the poll day and low voter's turn out posed a threat, the UDF has retained Ernakulam Assembly constituency, a known citadel of it, by a margin of 3673 votes. UDF candidate TJ Vinod, who is also Deputy Mayor of Kochi Corporation, garnered 37516 votes while LDF independent Manu Roy could get only 33843 votes. NDA's CG Rajagopal, who maintained a lead of three votes when counting of the postal votes, finished third by 13259 votes. Interestingly, an independent Manu KM, the namesake of LDF's Manu Roy garnered 2544 votes.
Unlike previous polls, the voter turnout in Ernakulam bypoll was 58.69. However, since the beginning of the counting, Vinod maintained the lead. At the end of the first round he led with710 votes. However, this was from Cheranellur Gramapanchyat where UDF expected a margin of 2500 votes. Later, his lead rose to 1500 votes.
While the counting of 99 booths out of 135 completed, he maintained the lead by 4202 votes and finally emerged victorious by 3673 votes.
A by-election was necessitated in Ernakulam after 21 as the sitting legislator Hibi Eden was elected to the Lok Sabha. In 2016 Assembly election, Ernakulam had elected Hibi with a margin of 21,949 votes than the CPM candidate M Anilkumar. The 2019 Parliament election had also repeated the same trend. In the Ernakulam Lok Sabha constituency where Ernakulam Assembly segment belongs, Hibi bagged victory with over 1.6 lakh votes.