Of all the five assembly bypoll results announced in Kerala on Wednesday, victory in Aroor assembly segment gave the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) something to cheer about.
The UDF won its traditional stronghold of Manjeswaram comfortably, and it had a lacklustre victory in another citadel Ernakulam.
So Congress workers are now savouring Shanimol's 2,079-vote victory though they overcame many anxious moments since counting began on Thursday morning. For, this the first Congress victory in Aroor after P S Karthikeyan's win in 1960.
Click here to view detailed election results.
The victory is a sort of sweet revenge for Shanimol. Five months ago, she had lost the Lok Sabha election in Alappuzha to CPM's A M Ariff. Ariff trailed Shanimol by 649 votes in Aroor – one of the assembly segments in Alappuzha Lok Sabha constituency - though the former had led in other assembly division. This majority, albeit thin, must have persuaded the UDF leadership to field Shanimol in the bypoll. Congress kept aside caste and religious arithmetic by deciding to field Muslim woman in a constituency with 75 per cent Hindu voters.
Right from the beginning of the campaign, the UDF was confident of the fact that Shanimol was acceptable to the majority in the constituency. Aroor also saw the Congress machinery working in unison.
Sympathy factor
Congress sources admitted that there was a sympathy wave in favour of Shanimol in Aroor since she was the only defeated UDF candidate in the Lok Sabha polls. “Women, irrespective their party allegiance, were in favour of Shanimol. The anti-women remarks made by senior CPM leader and state minister G Sudhakaran also angered several women voters,” a Congress leader said.
Sudhakaran had allegedly referred Shanimol as a demonic mythological character during an election rally.
Towards the end of the campaign, the Congress launched a personal attack against LDF candidate Manu C Pulickal. It alleged that Pulickal's family had ditched the Punnapra-Vayalar peasant uprising by serving a congratulatory feast to the army that shot down the peasants. Congress camps believed that the campaign distanced some traditional supporters of the Left from Manu.
“The CPM could not provide a convincing explanation to the allegations,” the Congress leader said.
Shanimol could maintain lead in all the panchayats including the Left-dominated areas like Perumbalam and Thuravur.
The BJP took issue with the decision of the CPM and Congress to field candidates from minority communities in a Hindu-dominated constituency. The results showed that Aroor's voters did not heed to the campaign.
BDJS votes
Notably, the NDA's vote share came down to 16,289 this time from the 27,753 it had polled in the 2016 assembly polls. BDJS had contested on NDA ticket then. This time, the differences between the BJP and the BDJS came to the fore and the latter chose not to contest. Resultantly, the BJP had to airdrop Yuva Morcha leader Prakash Babu from Kozhikode to contest in Aroor.
The deficit of 11,464 votes in the NDA's kitty is sure to open a Pandora's Box in the saffron fold.
There's an increase of 23,155 votes in the UDF's share compared to the 2016 polls when C R Jayaprakash gathered 46,201 votes. In 2016, LDF's Ariff had polled 84,720 votes -- 17443 more than what Manu got this time.
It remains to be seen what caused these changes in the figures. An easy inference could be that the BDJS votes have gone into both the LDF and UDF.
