KOCHI: LDF’s bypoll victory in a Nedumbassery panchayat ward is set to oust the UDF from power in the local body. With Archana N S of the CPM winning ward 14 (Kalpaka Nagar) with a majority of 98 votes, the LDF will have 10 members in the panchayat compared to UDF’s nine.
Archana defeated UDF’s Swathi Shivan and NDA’s Neetu Jayesh in the election held on Thursday. While the panchayat governing council had nine members each for the LDF and the UDF, the resignation of a UDF member because of factional tussles within the Congress necessitated the bypoll .
In the 2020 polls, Sandhya Narayana Pillai of the Congress was elected from the ward. The UDF came to power in the 19-member panchayat with the support of P V Kunju, a Congress rebel who contested as an independent.
Kunju became the president and Sandhya the vice-president. As agreed earlier, she had to step down from the post after two and a half years. Though the party issued a directive to that effect, Sandhya did not resign and continued in the post. Following a tussle with party leaders, she resigned from the vice president and member posts.