Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president Ramesh Chennithala on Friday said the United Democratic Front (UDF) could not achieve the kind of victory it hoped for. Still, a UDF government would assume power without doubt in the State.
Talking to the media at Haripad, where he won by over 5,000 votes, Mr. Chennithala said the KPCC and the UDF would examine the results in detail and go into the reasons of the UDF's “not so satisfactory” performance.
Mr. Chennithala, who said the defeat of veteran K.R. Gouri, who had made “invaluable contributions to the political sphere of Kerala”, was hurting, said his own victory was on expected lines. However, he said the majority could have been bigger. The details of where he lost votes would be examined in due course.
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Replying to a query on whether he had plans to become the Chief Minister, Mr. Chennithala smiled and said: “There will be a Chief Minister, and there will be ministers.”
In Alappuzha, Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac said the LDF had proved all critics wrong, and that the surveys that predicted sweeping victories to the UDF were now proved bogus.
The LDF had lost about six per cent of its total vote share in the State when leaders like M.P. Veerendrakumar and P.J. Joseph jumped ship to the UDF. However, none of those moves have had an impact on the LDF, and in fact, the LDF's vote share had only gone up as the results proved.
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The tough fight that the LDF put up was a reflection of the people's acceptance of the development initiatives taken up by the V.S. Achuthanandan-led government and at the same time, showed that the UDF's performance when it was in power was still being looked down upon by the public.
Coir and Cooperation Minister G. Sudhakaran, who won for the second consecutive time from Ambalapuzha, said the people had voted for development and that he was happy to have won over even voters who hitherto had always voted for the UDF.
JSS general secretary K.R. Gouri responded quite soberly to her loss, which was by over 18,000 votes to P. Thilothaman of the LDF. “I have lost. The reasons will be examined” was all that she said.
CPI(M) district secretary C.B. Chandrababu said the LDF, while winning seven of the nine constituencies in the district, had garnered more than 50 per cent of the total votes polled. The victory was a result of the concerted efforts of the CPI(M) and its allies and the party would take forward its development agenda with renewed commitment, he said.