KOCHI: This time too, Ernakulam proved to be an exception rather than the norm as the results of the assembly polls were announced on Sunday. Even while the Pinarayi wave swept the rest of the state, the district -- which is home to Kerala’s business capital Kochi, bucked the trend by remaining rock solid with the Congress-led alliance. Weathering the challenge posed by Twenty-20 outfit, UDF managed to secure nine out of the 14 assembly segments in the district. In the process, Congress managed to add one more to its tally when it snapped up Muvattupuzha.
While the Congress won eight seats, the Muslim League(IUML) lost its sitting seat Kalamassery. The Piravom seat was retained by Anoop Jacob (Kerala Congress-Jacob) for the UDF. A fierce electoral battle was witnessed in Tripunithura, where former minister K Babu was pitted against sitting MLA M Swaraj of the CPM.
After the lead shifted several times during counting, Babu finally managed to emerge victorious by a slender margin of 992 votes. BJP’s K S Radhakrishnan got 23,756 votes. The NDA had garnered over 29,000 votes in the 2016 elections in Tripunithura. Meanwhile, the Muslim League lost its lone sitting seat in Ernakulam -- Kalamassery -- when Abdul Gafoor lost to P Rajeev of the CPM by a margin of 15,336 votes.
The Twenty-20 factor clearly affected the UDF chances in two seats-- Kunnathunad and Kochi. In Kunnathunad, where sitting MLA V P Sajeendran of Congress lost to P V Sreenijin of CPM, the Twenty20 candidate garnered 42,701 votes to finish third. Sreenijan won by a margin of 2,715 votes. In Kochi, the apolitical outfits --Twenty 20 and V4Kochi -- collectively polled nearly 22,000 votes which proved crucial to the outcome in the Kochi seat where UDF candidate and former city mayor Tony Chammany went down to CPM’s K J Maxi by 14,079 votes.
The CPI, which contested in two seats—Paravoor and Muvattupuzha—the latter being its sitting seat, lost from both. While sitting MLA in Paravoor V D Satheesan of UDF eclipsed CPI’s M T Nixon by a margin of 10,970 votes, CPI’s sitting MLA in Muvattupzha Eldho Abraham suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Congress’ Mathew Kuzhalnadan. Kuzhalnadan won by a margin of 6,161 votes.The CPM managed to retain its sitting seats -- Vypeen and Kothamangalam. Sitting MLA Antony John won by a margin of 6,605 votes from Kothamangalam while debutant K N Unnikrishnan retained the Vypeen seat by 8,201 votes.
In Ernakulam, sitting MLA T J Vinodh of UDF retained the seat by winning against Shaji George, the Left independent. Vinodh won by a margin of 10,970 votes. In Thrikkakara, sitting MLA P T Thomas of Congress registered a comfortable victory against Left independent J Jacob by a margin of 14,329 votes.
Roji M John and Anwar Sadath, sitting Congress MLAs in Angamaly and Aluva, respectively won by a margin of 15,929 and 18,886 votes.
Twenty20 factor
The Twenty20 factor clearly affected the UDF chances in two seats—Kunnathunad and Kochi. In Kunnathunad, where sitting MLA V P Sajeendran of Congress lost to P V Sreenijin of CPM, the Twenty20 candidate garnered 42,701 votes to finish third. Sreenijan won by a margin of 2,715 votes. Twenty 20 and V4Kochi collectively polled nearly 22,000 votes