The CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) predictably routed the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala, with its biggest ever haul of seats in the state Assembly. The win statistics this poll would almost read like a replay in reverse of the 2001 Assembly polls. The Left this time has won 98 of the 140 seats, five more than the previous highest 93 seats that it secured way back in 1980. The UDF, which bagged 99 seats in the 2001 poll, managed only 42, including the lone MLA that its last minute foe-turned-ally K Karunakaran’s DIC(K) produced.

Among the LDF constituents, the CPM won 65 seats while the CPI bagged 17, the Janata Dal (Secular) 5, Kerala Congress (Joseph) 4, Revolutionary Socialist Party 3, Indian National League 1, and the NCP, Congress (Secular), and Kerala Congress (Secular) one each. The Congress won 24 seats while its allies brought up the remaining seats: Muslim League (8), DIC(K) (1), Janadhipatya Samrakshana Samithy (1), Kerala Congress (M) (7).

VS Achuthanandan, the Left’s Chief Minister-probable, won comfortably in Malampuzha on a 20,017 vote margin, while almost all other major contestants from the Left stable also managed to ride the Left wave. Among important UDF men who survived are Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, and ministers AP Anil Kumar and KC Venugopal. The biggest victory margin went to the Left’s M Chandran contesting from Alathur, who notched a record margin of over 47,000 votes.

So dismal was the UDF’s performance that many of its heavies who figured in the last UDF cabinet had to bite the dust. They include Cooperation minister MV Raghavan, Health ministers P Sankaran and KK Ramachandran, Public Works minister M K Muneer, Education minister ET Mohammed Basheer, Industries minister P K Kunhalikutty, Electricity minister Kadavoor Sivadasan, Agriculture minister K R Gowri, Irrigation minister TM Jacob, Local Self Government minister Cherkalam Abdulla and Transport minister R Balakrishna Pillai. Losers also included the UDF convenor, PP Thankachan.

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