After a campaign filled with several controversies and dramatic moments, the Palakkad Assembly constituency has voted into power Rahul Mamkootathil, the candidate of the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF). He secured a margin of 18,840 votes, the largest majority in the recent history of the constituency and five times higher than former MLA Shafi Parambil secured in 2021. Rahul gathered 58,389 votes, which is 4,310 votes higher than Shafi’s.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate C Krishnakumar came second with a total of 39,549 votes. This is considerably lower than the BJP’s share in the 2021 election, in which E Sreedharan, a technocrat turned politician, collected 50,220 votes, which was 3,480 less than Shafi’s.
Palakkad is one of the very few Assembly constituencies among the 140 in the state, where the BJP finished second in the 2021 polls. This drew significant attention to the constituency in this bye-election too.
However, the result came as a huge setback for the BJP, which had been hoping to send a representative from Palakkad to the state Assembly, after their historic victory in the Thrissur Lok Sabha seat.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] led Left Democratic Front (LDF) independent candidate Dr P Sarin was relegated to the third position with 37,293 votes. However, Sarin was able to increase around 1000 votes in the assembly constituency.
Internal bickering was rife in all three political parties over the candidate selection for the bye-poll. Congress decided to field Rahul, a Youth Congress leader and a regular face in television debates. But the fact that he is a native of Pathanamthitta caused disagreement among Youth Congress leaders in Palakkad.
Sarin, who was the first one who publicly expressed his displeasure regarding the candidacy, later joined hands with CPI(M) and contested as an LDF-backed independent candidate. The Left front’s candidate selection drew severe criticism within the party.
BJP’s Krishnakumar is a familiar face for the people of Palakkad. However, days before the election, Sandeep Varrier, BJP’s popular face and a vitriolic leader from Palakkad joined the Congress.
Voter turnout in the constituency was low compared to the other elections despite the high-octane campaign taken out by the three major parties.
The bye-election was necessitated when sitting Congress MLA Shafi Parambil contested the Vadakara Lok Sabha constituency against CPI(M)’s popular face and former Health Minister KK Shailaja, and secured the seat.