UR Pradeep, candidate of the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) has won the Chelakkara Assembly seat with a margin of 12201 votes. The seat, which went to polls on November 13 is considered a communist fort and had been with the LDF for the past 28 years.
Pradeep gathered a total of 64872 votes, which is 18,543 less than what K Radhakrishnan, former MLA and cabinet minister, gathered in the 2021 Assembly election. Radhakrishnan had polled a total of 83415 votes
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made gains in the constituency but former Alathur MP Ramya Haridas came second with 52626 votes, improving the performance of the United Democratic Front (UDF), which polled 44015 votes in 2021.
BJP candidate K Balakrishnan ended up in the third position with 33609 votes. But the party was able to increase the number of votes by more than 9000. In 2021, NDA candidate Shajumon Vattekkad gathered only 24045 votes.
The election was necessitated after the LDF MLA and cabinet minister K Radhakrishnan vacated the seat to contest the Alathur Lok Sabha constituency, where he defeated sitting MP Ramya Haridas of the Congress.
In the 2021 Assembly polls, Radhakrishnan had secured the seat with 54.41 percentage share of votes. UDF’s CC Sreekumar polled 44015 votes, a share of 28.71%.
In Chelakkara, PV Anvar, an LDF-backed MLA from Nilambhur, who recently left the alliance, fielded an independent candidate with the support of, Democratic Movement of Kerala (DMK), a social movement initiated by him. Sudheer received only 3920 votes.