Chennai: After two high-profile defections, an intense campaign and a triangular contest that drew the attention of the entire state, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF)’s Rahul Mamkootathil won the Palakkad assembly by-election after securing 58,389 votes and by a margin of 18,840 votes.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate C. Krishnakumar was in the second position with 39,549 votes while the Left Democratic Front (LDF)’s independent candidate, P. Sarin, who defected to the left party following a rift with the Congress, secured 37,293 votes.
The by-election in Palakkad, which was necessitated after sitting Congress MLA Shafi Parambil vacated it after winning the Vadakara Lok Sabha seat, witnessed considerable political drama after the Election Commission announced the poll dates on 15 October.
Parambil won the Lok Sabha seat against K.K. Shailaja, the state’s former health minister, with a margin of 1,14,506 votes.
The Congress’s choice to field Mamkootathil, a non-local Youth Congress leader, led to an intra-party dispute, that resulted in an open war of words between the party leadership and Sarin, its digital media head hailing from Ottappalam, nearly 40 km from Palakkad.
Sarin later found refuge in the Left, a party finishing third in the constituency for the past two Assembly polls. Sarin was later fielded as an Independent candidate by the ruling LDF.
Similarly, the BJP faced many hurdles in the seat, which it had high hopes for.
The party, still finding its electoral space in the state, has better chances in Palakkad due to the significant grip the RSS holds here. In 2021, when the BJP fielded ‘Metro Man’ E. Sreedharan, the party had secured 50,220 votes, or 35.34 percent, against Shafi Parambil’s 54,079 votes, or 38.06 percent.
This time, the party chose to field its local face, C. Krishnakumar, for the Palakkad Lok Sabha seat.
However, the party landed in a pickle after one of its popular representatives on television, Sandeep Varier, decided to stay away from the poll campaign, citing issues with the way the party treated him.
After a week of suspense about his possible shift to another party, Varier joined the Congress party last week.
Kerala-based political analyst and former journalist K.P. Sethunath told ThePrint that anti-incumbency and the BJP’s factionalism contributed to Rahul’s lead in Palakkad, despite the fact that he is an outsider to the constituency. He added that the BJP would have had an equal chance of winning had Sandeep Varier not defected to the Congress.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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