Thiruvananthapuram: The CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front had a landslide victory in Kerala with the front leading in 91 of the 140 seats against the ruling United Democratic Front led by the Congress and is on the way to forming government. The BJP which had done a high-profile campaign in the State led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the party national president Amit Shah could not live up to the high expectations it had itself set as veteran leader O Rajagopal won the single seat for the party at Nemom in Thiruvananthapuram district.
The LDF won convincingly by sweeping Kollam and Thrissur districts and had handsome victories in several districts like Kannur and Kozhikode.
The BDJS of the backward SNDP Yogam and a prominent partner of the BJP in the NDA front failed to win any single seat.
Daggers are already drawn in the Congress with the outgoing Chief Minister Oomen Chandy confiding to his close aides that he is not in for the race of the opposition leader’s post.
While speaking to the media, the CPI(M) State secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said that the LDF’s win with such a handsome margin was mainly due to the politics it presented before the people of the State. The UDF, he said, lost power and got its biggest drubbing in the history of the Congress party owing to its anti-people policies. This showed that the policies and programmes of the Congress were being rejected flatly by the people of Kerala, he added.
Veteran CPI(M) leader and former Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan said that the people have resoundingly replied to the politics and wrong policies followed by the Congress and Oomen Chandy. He congratulated the women of the State for having given such a landslide victory to the LDF.
The probable leader of the house Pinarayi Vijayan, while speaking to media persons, congratulated the people of the State for giving such a comprehensive victory to the LDF.
The BJP which had made unreasonably tall claims by publicly declaring the probability of winning the State with 71+ seats had to bite the dust. It was the veteran octogenarian leader Rajagopal who provided some consolation by winning the Nemom seat with a margin of 8610 votes. The BJP leadership can find solace that the party has at least opened its account in the State.
It is certain that the BJP State leadership has a lot of answering to do before the central leadership on the wrong alliances and the unnecessary flamboyance it had shown before the hustings. The central leadership, including the Prime Minister, was quite magnanimous in providing everything that the State leadership had asked for, which included the induction of actor Suresh Gopi as nominated Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha, as well as the nomination of Prof Richard Hey as an Anglo-Indian member in the Lok Sabha. This election, the BJP State leaders had zigzagged the length and breadth of the State in choppers and even chartered flights. None of that could help the party anymore than merely opening their account in this south Indian State.
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