After polls, LDF ready to concede Taliparamba; BJP hopes fade amid high turnout in Manjeshwar, Kasaragod

Twenty-nine-year-old Sultan Ali has spent seven years selling car accessories in Dubai. He left school after Class XI and his village in Mangalpady soon after. This election, he returned to stand in a queue at a government LP school and vote for the first time. “I spent ₹50,000 to fly down to vote. It is our right,” he said.

At GVHSS Mogral, three sisters - M K Farhana (19), M K Farisa (21) and Dr Fairoos Haseena (25) - did the same. Farhana and Farisa, students in Bengaluru and Malappuram, travelled home to cast their first votes. Across Manjeshwar, such first-time voters, many in their twenties and mostly from minority communities, formed a noticeable line.

Local UDF leaders say the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls triggered this surge. Fears of disenfranchisement, sharpened by deletion in West Bengal and Assam, pushed many to enrol. Notably, only Malappuram, Kannur and Kasaragod districts saw a net addition to the rolls after the revision; the other 11 districts recorded net deletions. On the ground, that translated into long queues and possibly a shift in margins.

In Kasaragod, turnout climbed sharply. The constituency recorded 79.61%, up by a whopping 7.56 percentage points from 2021. Manjeshwar rose to 81.04%, up by 3.11 points. 

The surge in turnout in Manjeshwar and Kasaragod stands in clear contrast to the rest of the district, and to Kannur, where no comparable spike was evident. 

Even rival political leaders said the numbers in Manjeshwar and Kasaragod settled the contest; the only question now is the size of the UDF’s victory. “Write it down. UDF will win by 7,000 to 8,000 in Manjeshwar,” a rival party leader said, where the IUML’s A K M Ashraf faces the BJP's K Surendran. To be sure, Manjeshwar is the only constituency in Kasaragod, where the turnout crossed 80%.

Outgoing Kasaragod MLA N A Nellikkunnu attributed the eight-point spike in turnout in Kasaragod to a cleaner roll after the SIR.

In Kasaragod, IUML district president Kallatra Mahin is taking on BJP district president M L Ashwini, who ran a spirited campaign.

In the other three Kasaragod seats held by the LDF, the turnout was flat: Udma (78.07%), Kanhangad (77.24%) and Trikaripur (79.64%), each up by just 0.7, 0.8 and 0.24 points, respectively. These are red bastions, and with a post-SIR electorate, the turnout should have shot up.

The LDF expects to hold its ground in these three segments, though the UDF hopes Congress’s Sandeep Varier, after a combative campaign, can wrest Trikaripur, or at least give the home boy and CPM’s V P P Mustafa a close fight.

Down Kannur
If Kasaragod’s turnout story is of a rise, Kannur’s is of stillness with subtle tremors. Of the 11 seats in Kannur, the turnout saw a dip in nine, including in Chief Minister’s Dharmadam, and a near-flat rise in Thalassery and Mattannur, where the numbers rose by 0.2 points and 0.13 points. 

Irikkur, the Congress’s lone bastion in the district, saw the sharpest dip, down 3.88 points to 74.32%. Even so, the pro-Congress seat is expected to stay with sitting MLA Sajeev Joseph. The more intriguing question is who stayed away. If the missing voters are Left’s base, it could signal trouble for the LDF beyond the hill constituency.

The turnout dropped or was near flat in all red citadels such as Kalliasseri (76.99%, down by 1.87 points); Dharmadam (81.44%, down by 1.89 points); Mattannur (82.24%, barely up by 0.13 points); and Thalassery (76.33%, up by 0.2 points). Payyannur — where the sitting MLA T I Madhusoodanan was under a cloud of corruption allegations and under relentless attack by senior Communist leader and whistleblower V Kunhikrishnan — the turnout dropped by 1.3 points to 80.57%. 

No one expects any change in the outcome here.

The sharper political reading lies in Taliparamba, an LDF bastion, where turnout dropped by 2.43 points to 81.01%. 

The sharp drop in turnout, though above 80%, could be reflect the unpopularity of LDF’s choice of candidate, P K Shyamala, wife of CPM state secretary M V Govindan. Her nomination, pushed through despite resistance across party committees in the district, triggered the exit of T K Govindan, the most senior member of the CPM’s Kannur district secretariat, now fielded by the UDF as an independent.

A loyal CPM voter in Taliparamba summed up the mood on the ground: Shyamala should win, but by the narrowest possible margin. After polling, however, he felt the trimming may have gone too far, potentially opening the door for a rare upset in favour of the UDF-backed rebel.

Despite the drop, Taliparamba is among the four bastions of the CPM which recorded an 80%-plus turnout: The Chief Minister's Dharmadam (81.44%), rebellion-hit Payyannur (80.57%) and Mattannur (82.24%), signalling consolidation in CPM strongholds. All eyes would be on the margin and vote share of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, after he was challenged well by Congress’s V P Abdul Rasheed, a proven vote catcher for the UDF.

Azhikode, where the IUML is trying to make a comeback, turnout dip by 2.14 points to 77.71%. Kannur constituency saw a turnout of 75.61%, which is a drop of 1.68 points.

Yet, the UDF remains hopeful in the two constituencies, leaning on the momentum gathered by IUML district president Abdul Kareem Chelari in Azhikode, and age-related fatigue around LDF candidate Kadannappalli Ramachandran (81), who first contested an election in 1971. Former mayor T O Mohanan is the UDF candidate in Kannur.

Kuthuparamba (78.46%), where IUML fielded Jayanthi Rajan, a female Dalit leader, also a turnout out 78.46%. In 2021, the turnout was 80.37%. Jayanthi Rajan took on RJD's P K Praveen, who is the nephew of the outgoing MLA and UDF-era minister K P Mohanan. Now, RJD is with the LDF.  

Thalassery, where the CPM fielded Karayi Rajan, facing prosecution for the murder of National Democratic Front (NDF) activist Mohammed Fazal, saw a turnout of 76.33%, a flat 0.2 percentage points rise.

Across the district’s 11 constituencies, the LDF won nine and the UDF two in 2021. “This time, we see ourselves winning five,” said Chelari. “Apart from retaining Peravoor and Irikkur, we are likely to win Kannur, Azhikode and Taliparamba.”

The LDF, however, is not inclined to concede ground, holding on to all seats in its internal assessment, with Taliparamba the only possible exception, and that too only if its calculations go awry.