From third to second: BJP’s vote share surge in Kerala

BJP ended its Kerala assembly drought by winning three seats and finishing second in six constituencies, improving vote share in key areas like Thiruvalla, Palakkad, and Attingal, though it still trailed UDF’s dominant 102-seat victory over LDF’s 35

Thiruvananthapuram: The BJP, which gained three seats in the Kerala assembly polls and ended its political drought in the state, came in the second place in six other constituencies. The BJP got second place in Thiruvalla, Palakkad, Malampuzha, Attingal, Kasaragod and Manjeshwar seats after counting of votes on May 4. In Thiruvalla, BJP’s state general secretary Anoop Antony came second with 43,078 votes and lost by a margin of 10,146 to advocate Varghese Mammen of the Kerala Congress (KEC).

He also increased the party’s vote share in the constituency as compared to the 2021 Assembly polls. In 2021, the BJP came third with 16.25 per cent of the votes, while this time it got 30.61 per cent of the votes.

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In Palakkad, the party’s senior firebrand leader Sobha Surendran, following a neck-and-neck contest in the initial rounds of counting, lost to UDF’s Ramesh Pisharody by 13,147 votes.
She got 49,052 votes, while Pisharody got 62,199 votes.

However, she improved the BJP’s vote share compared to the 2024 by-election in the Palakkad constituency, In 2024, it had a vote share of 28.80 per cent, while this time the party got 33.33 per cent, as per Election Commission data.

In Attingal, advocate P Sudheer came second with 45,788 votes, 13,375 votes behind the winner — CPI(M)’s O S Ambika. Sudheer too increased the BJP’s vote share in the constituency as compared to the 2021 assembly polls, when it had come second with 25.92 per cent of the votes.

This time, the saffron party got 30.54 per cent of the votes polled in the constituency. C Krishnakumar, Ashwini ML and K Surendran also came second in the Malampuzha, Kasaragod and Manjeshwar, respectively, falling behind the winners by a margin of around or more than 20,000 votes.

However, they were not able to increase the party’s vote share in these constituencies as compared to the 2021 assembly polls. The UDF won 102 seats, while the CPI(M)-headed LDF netted 35 seats, according to Election Commission data on counting of votes for 140 constituencies.