Cong-led front barely makes it in Kerala

The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) narrowly came to power in Kerala, securing 72 of the 140 seats in the assembly. The incumbent Left Democratic Front, led by the CPI(M), was close behind, with 68.

A neck-and-neck fight through the counting seemed to signal a hung assembly, but the UDF managed it, with the narrowest margin ever in the history of the state. The LDF had won 98 seats in the 2006 elections; in 2001, the UDF won 99 seats.

Chief minister V S Achu-thanandan kept his Malampuzha assembly segment in Palakkad district by a margin of 23,440 votes. In Puthupally in Kottayam district, Opposition leader and chief ministerial candidate of the UDF, Oommen Chandy, won his ninth term in the assembly, by 33,255 votes. Many LDF ministers — Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, Thomas Issac, M A Baby, A K Balan, P K Gurudasan, S Sharma, Jose Thettayil, C Divakaran, Mullakkara Retnakaran and Elamaram Kareem — won their respective seats, but some (N K Premachandran, K Ramachandran) lost.

Prominent UDF leaders to win were K M Mani, P K Kunhalikutty, Ramesh Chennithala, K Muraleedharan, M K Muneer, Aryadan Mohamed and P J Joseph. Two of their seniors who did not (both expelled years before from the CPI(M) were K R Gowriamma and M V Raghavan.

The entire northern Malabar region, barring the Malappuram district, favoured the Left Front, but the Kochi region and the central Travancore area returned the UDF. The Indian Union Muslim League won 20 of the 24 seats it contested, 14 from Muslim-dominated Malappuram district. Of the 16 seats in the district, 14 were won by the UDF.

Likewise, the support of Christians, especially the Roman and Latin Catholics, played a key role in the thumping victory of the UDF in districts like Ernakulam and Kottayam. That the Nair Service Society sided with them, helped the UDF in districts like Kottayam and Pathanamthitta. The UDF got 10 of the 14 seats in Ernakulam distirct, the industrial and business capital. The state capital, Thiruvanthapuramm which had gone with the UDF in the Lok Sabha election of 2009, this time went the LDF way — the coalition won six seats.

Kollam always inclined to vote Left, favoured it this time, too, giving nine of the 11 seats. Likewise, seven of the nine from Alappuzha were won by the Marxist front. In sum, althouhg it lost, the LDF has recovered from the humiliating defeats in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and the poll to the local bodies. It plans to provide a strong opposition to the UDF.