The Congress-led UDF won three out of the five seats for which bye-elections were held in Kerala on Monday. The ruling LDF emerged victorious in two constituencies. The BJP couldn’t win a single seat though the party fielded state General Secretary K Surendran as its candidate in Konni in Pathanamthitta.
Thiruvananthapuram Mayor VK Prasanth of the CPI(M) emerged victorious in the Vattiyoorkkavu constituency winning by 14,465 votes, defeating BJP’s S Suresh and Congress’ K Mohankumar.
The Congress retained the Ernakulam seat with party candidate TJ Vinod winning by a slim margin of 3750 votes.
In Konni, Janeesh Kumar of the CPI(M) captured the seat from the UDF, with a victory margin of 9953 votes.
In Manjeswaram, another seat which the BJP had pinned high hopes, UDF's MC Kamaruddheen of the IUML won by 7923 votes.
In the bye-polls held for Pala constituency on October 23, the Left has captured the seat from the UDF citadel. LDF’s Mani C Kappan of NCP defeated his UDF rival Jose Tom Pulikkunnel of KC(M), while N Hari for the BJP ended in third place.
Aroor witnessed a photo finish with Congress’ Shanimol Usman winning by a wafer thin margin of 2079 votes, defeating CPI(M)’s Manu C Pulikkal.
While the Manjeswaram bye-poll was necessitated after the death of the legislator PB Adbul Razak, the other constituencies fell vacant as the sitting MLAs had been elected to the Lok Sabha.
All five seats that went to bye-elections barring Aroor had belonged to the UDF.
The victory of the LDF in Vattiyoorkkavu and Konni are huge as in both the constituencies the Congress had secured more than 50% of the votes polled in 2016 Assembly Elections. Konni, which is situated in Pathanamthitta where Sabarimala temple is located is a big win for the Left as the results come a year after the massive protests over the government implementing the Supreme Court order allowing the entry of all women into the temple. The Sabarimala issue was used extensively by the UDF and the BJP in its campaigns. Many had attributed the poll debacle of the LDF in the Lok Sabha Elections for its stand on the issue.
Vattiyoorkkavu and Manjeswaram constituencies witnessed a triangular fight while the other constituencies saw a direct fight between the UDF and LDF.