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 79.16 %, up by a whopping 8.29 percentage points from 2021. Manjeshwar rose to 79.55 % (up 2.73 points). Even rival political leaders said the numbers 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.

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 rise was steadier: Udma (78.05%), Kanhangad (77.08%) and Trikaripur (79.60%), each up between 2.5 and 3 points. The LDF expects to hold its ground here, though the UDF hopes Congress’s Sandeep Varier has made Trikaripur competitive.

Flat Kannur
If Kasaragod’s story is of a surge, Kannur’s is of stillness with subtle tremors. Of the 11 seats in Kannur, the turnout saw a dip or remained near flat in six constituencies.

Irikkur, the Congress’s lone bastion in the district, fell to 74.32% from 75.63%, but is expected to stay with sitting MLA Sajeev Joseph.

Red citadel Kalliasseri saw a rise of 0.58 points to 76.99%. No one expects any change in the outcome here.

The sharper political reading lies in Taliparamba, an LDF bastion, where turnout remained flat at 81.01%. Going by the trends in Kasaragod, the turnout should have seen a spurt, given that the electoral rolls have been cleaned up.

But the flat turnout, though about 80%, reflects 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 marginal rise (0.07 points), 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 (80.578%) and Mattannur (82.24%), signalling consolidation in CPM strongholds. The turnout in Dharmadam rose by 1.22 points, and Mattannur rose by 2.7 points. All eyes would be on the margin and vote share of the Chief Minister, after he was challenged well by Congress’s V P Abdul Rasheed.

The 1.61-point rise in Payyannur, the strongest CPM citadel, offers some relief to T I Madhusoodanan amid lingering allegations of corruption and a challenge by whistleblower V Kunhikrishnan.

Azhikode, where the IUML is trying to make a comeback, saw a dip of 0.18 points in turnout, just like in Irikkur. Kannur constituency saw a turnout of 75.61%, which is a rise of 0.67 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.

Kuthuparamba (78.46%), where IUML fielded Jayanthi Rajan, a female Dalit leader, also saw a flat turnout. She is taking 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%, up by 1.47 percentage points.

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.