Hard-fought victory for most candidates in kerala
Fortunes fluctuated throughout counting and went down to wire in TVM, Vadakara, Kannur
Update: 2014-05-17 08:56 GMT
Kochi: With fortunes of candidates swinging wildly in at least six constituencies from the start of counting at 8 am, the electoral battle was more like a 20-20 cricket match though the duration stretched for over five hours. While the fortunes fluctuated in Idukki, Alappuzha, Mavellikkara, Wayanad, the contest went down to the wire in Thiruvananthapuram, Vadakara and Kannur.
The morning began with T.Siddique springing a surprise by gaining a lead of 6000 votes over his formidable LDF opponent P.Karunakaran in Kasargod and raised it to 18,000 by noon. The lead dropped to 2800 in the afternoon. From here Karunakaran staged a comeback and ultimately won by 6487 votes.
In neighbouring Kannur, heart beats fluctuated as P.K.Sreemathy and K.Sudhakaran took turns in taking the lead against each other. The LDF candidate took an early lead of 4500 and held on until 9.15am. Sreemathi got back into the lead by 10am, touching 6,800. The lead fluctuated again couple of times in the next twenty minutes with the two candidates maintaining a lead which ranged from 800 to as low as 13 votes. It was only in the final round that Sreemathi's lead started increasing from 3281 to 3816 and finally won by 6482.
The cliffhanger continued in some constituencies, E.Ahmed in Malappuram, E.T.Muhammed Basheer in Ponnani, both of Muslim League, K.V.Thomas in Ernakulam, Jose K.Mani in Kottayam, Anto Antony in Pathanamthitta and N.K. Premachandran in Kollam, all UDF C.N. Jayadevan in Thrissur, M.B.Rajesh in Palakkad, P.K.Biju in Alathur, A.Sampath in Attingal - all of LDF cruised to victory.
Joyce George in Idukki, riding on the anti Kasturi wave, received a setback just for a brief period in the morning. But soon he took a slender lead of 200, took it to 465 and with the completion of each round he increased the lead. After 88.75 percent votes were counted, he led by 49,938 votes.
Mavelikkara swung between Kodikkunnil Suresh of Congress and LDF's Chengara Surendran. LDF at one stage led by 1600 votes but soon the Congress candidate staged a comeback and led all the way till the end.
In Chalakudy, Innocent maintained a steady lead over political heavyweight P.C. Chacko. Wayanad constituency sprung a surprise in the morning with Sathyan Mokeri overtaking M.I.Shanawas by 1037. But here again the fortunes turned in favour of the Congress candidate. Kozhikode witnessed LDF lead initially but later M.K.Raghavan maintained steady lead going from 6000 votes at 9.30 am, 12,700 at 10.30, 12,000 votes at 11.30 am to 16,000 votes at 12.30 pm.
The counting gave anxious moments to Union Minister and sitting MP K.C. Venugopal at Alappuzha with LDF candidate C.B.Chandrababu taking slender lead. Venugopal had a slender lead of 112 votes in the beginning, later he made it 2,000 votes by 9.34am and increased it to 10,000 votes by 10.45am and consolidated step by step after that.
Vadakara went down to the wire literally an hour after the counting began. Mullappally led by 60 votes at 8.15am, by 8.30am Shamseer was up by 2400 votes which went up to 9,000. At 9.30am UDF regained lead by 8,000 votes but by 9.55am LDF came back strongly taking a lead of 7000. Then there was a seesaw battle throughout finally wining with 3306 votes.
Mother of all battles was fought in the state capital where O.Rajagopal almost opened the account for BJP. Barring 10 minutes during which Bennet maintained a lead of 50 votes, for the rest of the counting it was a straight fight between Tharoor and Rajagopal. The latter peaked at 14,000 and maintained a good lead for almost 30 minutes. But Tharoor not only bridged the gap but took a slender led which he continued to increase, and finally won by over 15,000 votes.