The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) retained the Pappanamcode ward of the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation with its candidate, G.S. Asha Nath, scoring a victory by a slender margin of 35 votes in the by-election held on Thursday. Asha Nath polled 2,916 votes, beating Left Democratic Front (LDF) candidate K. Mohanan who polled 2,881 votes, out of the 6,419 votes polled. United Democratic Front (UDF) candidate Arun Vishnu was placed a distant third with 580 votes.
The seat fell vacant following the death of BJP councillor Kaimanam Chandran, who was electrocuted at his house on April 11. He had won the seat by a margin of 505 votes in the local body elections held last year. In the 100-member council, the LDF now has 43 members, BJP 35, Congress 21 and the sole Independent councillor.
“This victory is the result of hard work by all party workers over the past two months. My only wish was that the ward, which was won by my uncle last time, should not go out of her hands. That wish spurred us to work hard. My immediate focus will be on solving the drinking water issues in the ward and continue the works taken up by my uncle before his passing away,” Ms. Asha Nath told The Hindu .
While the BJP polled 397 more votes compared to last time, the LDF polled 867 votes more.
However, the UDF lost 286 votes. Mayor V.K. Prasanth said the ‘vote leakage’ from the UDF had helped the BJP.
“We managed to cut down the BJP’s lead drastically, from 505 last year to 35 now. Even during the Assembly elections held two months ago, they had a lead of more than 1,000 votes from this ward. If the UDF had secured all its votes, the result would have been different.
Cong. dismisses charge
However, the Congress Council Party leader Johnson Joseph dismissed these charges.
“We had worked hard for the elections, but unluckily the result turned out like this.
But the allegations of vote leakage are absurd. There is no chance of vote leakage when the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee’s inquiry on the Nemom Assembly election result is on,” he said.
The BJP’s win in the by-election could put the ruling LDF under further pressure. The BJP had with its increased tally in the council been vocal in the council meetings over the past year.
