On a day the State chose to usher in a major political transformation, Kottayam chose to remain unchanged. All the political parties were elected to their respective sitting seats.
The Kerala Congress(M) held on to Pala, Kaduthuruthy, Changanassery, and Kanjirappally, while Kottayam and Puthuppally went the Congress way. The Left continued its sway over Vaikom and Ettumanur. However, the biggest story came from Poonjar, where sitting MLA P.C. George got himself elected as Independent, fighting against the three political formations.
K.M. Mani took his 13th consecutive win from Pala defeating Mani C. Kappan of the NCP with a margin of 4,703 votes. At Kaduthuruthy, sitting MLA Mons Joseph (KC-M) registered a record win of 42,256 votes against Scaria Thomas of the KC faction bearing his own name.
Kanjirappally saw an impressive show by the NDA, which bagged 31,411 votes.
The two KC factions were face to face in Changanassery, where C.F. Thomas, MLA, was returned for the ninth time with a majority of 1,849 votes against nearest rival K.C. Joseph of KC(Democratic). The Kottayam segment had a big surprise up its sleeve when it gave Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, sitting MLA and Minister of Forests, a big victory of 33,632 votes.
Puthuppally returned its favoured candidate Oommen Chandy for the 11the time with a healthy margin of 27,092 votes against SFI State president Jaick C. Thomas. However, his margin of victory was 5,000 more in 2011.Veteran BJP leader George Kurian received 15,993 votes.
CPI’s C.K. Asha won at Vaikom with a comfortable majority of 24,584 votes against Congress’ A.Saneesh Kumar. It was a dingdong battle between sitting MLA K. Suresh Kurup and KC(M) veteran Thomas Chazhikkadan at Ettumanur till Mr. Kurup took home a margin of 8,899.
