Kottayam: Puthuppally, once again, expressed its love for Oommen Chandy and anger towards the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left government as the assembly constituency elected United Democratic Front (UDF) candidate Chandy Oommen by a record margin.
Chandy, son of Oommen Chandy, romped home by a victory margin of 37,719 votes as the votes polled in the September 5 bypoll were counted on Friday.
Of the 1,28,535 votes polled, Chandy won 80,144 while his immediate rival, CPM’s Jaick C Thomas, had to settle for nearly 42,425 votes. The BJP finished at a distant third with just nearly 6,554 votes.
In the 2021 election, Oommen Chandy had won 63,372 votes while Jaick got 54,328 votes. BJP’s tally stood at 11,694 then.
The trend was visible right from the beginning as Chandy maintained a comfortable lead in Ayarkunnam panchayat. In Ayarkunnam alone, the UDF garnered a lead of 5,487 votes. This is a huge leap from the 1,293-margin Oommen Chandy gained in his last election in 2021. Chandy continued to maintain lead in all the remaining seven panchayats.
In the 2021 election when Jaick almost managed to stage an upset Oommen Chandy’s lead had come down significantly in all panchayats compared to previous elections. Jaick even had an upperhand in his panchayat – Manarcaud – where the Left front gained a lead of 1,213 votes. This time, Chandy gained a lead of 2,515 votes over Jaick in the sixth round of counting wherein most of the votes polled in Manarcaud were counted.
The bypoll run-up witnessed a fierce campaign with the rival fronts playing up all of their cards in the electioneering which lasted for a month. The UDF ran its campaign mainly by keeping Oommen Chandy’s memories alive and targetting the Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF government over a series of issues including corruption allegations, price rise and tax hike. The LDF attempted to tide over the perceived sympathy wave in favour of Chandy by shifting the poll narrative to Oommen Chandy’s alleged failure to ensure infrastructure development in the constituency he represented for 53 years.
However, the results show that the Left campaign could not gain the desired traction.
The campaigning also witnessed personal attacks as families of both the main candidates were dragged onto controversies. Chandy himself was targetted by the Left supporters over the controversy regarding alleged denial of proper medical treatment to his father. Though the CPM leadership abstained from playing it up, the party supporters, especially on cyber space, kept it alive throughout the electioneering. Chandy’s sister Achu Oommen had to endure cyberbullying as photos she had posted on Instagram as part of her modelling profession were used as symbols of her “extravagant” lifestyle. She went on to file a complaint against a Left-supporting government official for malicious campaign on cyber space.
Jaick’s wife Geethu, who is nine-month pregnant, also filed a police complaint against Congress-supporting trolls for harassing her on social media.
