Palakkad (Kerala) [India]: Ahead of the counting of votes for the Palakkad Assembly by-election, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate C Krishnakumar on Saturday expressed confidence in his party’s victory, saying that the BJP would win the election with a thumping margin.
Speaking to media, BJP leader Krishnakumar said, “It has created a very good thing in the favour of BJP. Christian minority usually votes for UDF in the past elections. Now, they have shifted their loyalty to BJP…I have been in the public field, so people know about me. They know about BJP in Palakkad…We will definitely win the election with a thumping margin.”
Earlier, Left Democratic Front (LDF) candidate for the Palakkad Assembly by-election, P Sarin expressed confidence that his party will get more than double the votes it secured in the 2021 assembly polls and that the bypolls would be a “one-sided affair.”
“The people have a lot of expectations from this election with respect to the candidate that they are going to elect. They have lost the opportunity not once but thrice and they want to compensate for that. This bypoll will be a one-sided affair. LDF will get more than double the votes it got in 2021, that is, not less than 70,000,” Sarin told media.
He further said that there is no anti-incumbency in Palakkad but there is an “anti-MLA factor” as the incumbent MLA didn’t do any work here.
“The MLA couldn’t do anything for the past 13.5 years which has gone against that front. This is one-sided bypolls. People were not keen on allegations, they were focused on developmental issues. This is a reconciliation that people are going to make with LDF. This will be compensation for 2021 when 99 constituencies pro-democratic and pro-secular votes were shifted towards LDF but not Palakkad,” he further added.
Palakkad’s bye-election is crucial for the Congress, CPI(M), and BJP. Krishnakumar is up against United Democratic Front’s (UDFs) Rahul Mamkootathil and Left Democratic Front’s (LDFs) P Sarin in the bypolls.
The by-polls on the seat were necessitated after MLA Shafi Parambil left the seat and contested and won the Lok Sabha elections from the Vadakara constituency.