The Congress-led United Democratic Front has retained all the three seats in the by elections to the Kerala Assembly. Congress candidates A.P. Abdullakutty, Dominic Presentation and A.A. Shukoor were declared winners from Kannur, Ernakulam and Alappuzha constituencies respectively on Tuesday, with impressive margins.
A.P. Abdullakutty trounced M.V. Jayarajan of CPI(M) in Kannur constituency by a margin of more than 12000 votes.
Dominic Presentation defeated P.N. Seenulal of CPI(M) in Ernakulam constituency winning more than 8,600 votes over his opponent.
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A.A. Shukoor was elected from Alappuzha constituency by a margin of about 4,700 votes. He defeated G. Krishanaprasad of CPI which is a constituent of the CPI(M) led Left Democratic Front.
The Congress had fought the elections as the main constituent of the Opposition United Democratic Front. It retains the seats which were vacated by Congress legislators upon their election to the Lok Sabha early this year. BJP candidates came third in all the constituencies.
According to data from the State Electoral Office, Mr. Abdullakutty won 53,987 votes against 41944 won by Mr. Jayarajan in Kannur constituency. BJP’s K. Ranjith won 5,665 votes. The candidate of the newly formed Social Democratic party of India Abdul Majeed Faizy came fourth, winning 3,411 votes.
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Mr. Dominic Presentation bagged 46119 votes against 37,499 votes polled by P.N. Seenulal. Sobha Surendran of BJP improved the party’s tally in Ernakulam constituency over that of the 2006 Assembly elections by polling 7,208 votes.
A.A. Shukoor won 42,774 votes against 38,029 votes polled by G. Krishnaprasad in Alappuzha. The BJP candidate K. Babu got 2,247 votes.
The polling saw higher polling percentage than the previous Assembly elections. The by-election in Kannur was one fought bitterly over allegations about registration of bogus voters in the constituency and measures taken by the Election Commission to ensure free and fair polls.