Results declared on Friday showed that 37-year-old Chandy Oommen trounced his main rival Jaick C Thomas of the CPI(M) by a margin of 37,719 votes in the bypoll, which saw nearly a month of vigorous campaigning by leaders of the Congress, CPI(M), and BJP for their respective parties.
In 2011, Oommen Chandy secured an impressive margin of 33,255, which was the highest in his 12 electoral runs since 1970. Surpassing this milestone, his son now leads with an even greater margin of 34,036 votes, as over half of the votes have been counted.
The sequence commenced with the counting of postal votes, followed by those cast by senior citizens, and then the Electronic Voting Machines were tallied. Congress contender Chandy Oommen quickly gained momentum, securing a lead of over 1,500 in just a matter of minutes.
