LDF candidate P P Chitharanjan will win Alappuzha assembly constituency in Alappuzha district, represented by veteran CPM leader and finance minister Thomas Isaac, according to the Manorama News-VMR Exit Poll released on Friday.
Chitharanjan, who was fielded by the CPM as Isaac could not contest due to the party's rules regarding terms for a candidate, will poll 51.5 per cent of votes, the exit poll predicts.
UDF candidate K S Manoj will turn runner-up with 36.7 percent of votes. BJP's Sandeep Vachaspathi will finish third with 10 percent of votes.
The contest in Alappuzha would have been a one-sided fight had Isaac been the LDF candidate. Isaac had won from Alappuzha by a whopping margin of 31,032 votes in 2016. In 2011, Isaac won the seat by a margin of 16,342 votes defeating Congress's P J Mathew. Before that Congress leader K C Venugopal had won a hat-trick from the seat in 2006, 2001 and 1996.
The CPM's decision to keep Isaac out of the fray this time despite his impressive performance as finance minister in the Pinarayi Vijayan government had raised many eyebrows within the Left front and out of it.
The UDF hoped that it could wrest the seat from LDF riding on the popularity of Manoj, a former MP. Manoj was elected to the Lok Sabha as a CPM candidate in 2004 as he defeated Congress's V M Sudheeran. However, he severed ties with the CPM and joined Congress in 2010.
