Pinarayi Vijayan to make a historic come back to power in Kerala, BJP won’t have an MLA this time

After the 1970s, the people of Kerala have never voted a chief minister or party back to power. But the state’s incumbent Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) has just pulled it off.

In a state where right wing politics was always a distant third, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) did not win a single seat.

Alliance	Seats won in 2016	Seats won in 2021
LDF	91	91
UDF	47	40
NDA	1	0

Here’s why the LDF was so confident in the run up to the polls

Kerala government’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis, especially the first wave, was praised by the international $4. The health minister of Kerala KK Shailaja -- ‘Shailaja Teacher’ for most malayalees -- was heralded a superstar. The way she handled the $4virus outbreak of 2018 and the manner in which the state’s executives assembled behind her to prepare and fight the first wave of the Coronavirus was applauded across the $4 spectrum.

As the country continues to be ravaged by the second wave of the pandemic, Kerala, too, seems to be struggling to contain the massive spread. The state has enforced lockdown-like restrictions in the past few days. Even then, Kerala has a $4 of oxygen supply and is helping other states with it. The state has been through a lot, in the last 5 years, including the disastrous 2018 flood and a couple of storms.

Vote share in 2016 and 2021 assembly elections:

Coalition	2016 vote share	2021 vote share
LDF	43.5%	Over 33%
UDF	38.8%	Over 31.9%
NDA	15%	Over 11.8%
Others	2.8%	Over 15%

These are some of the key constituencies and winners:

(Winners’ names in bold letters)

Constituency	LDF	UDF	NDA	Incumbent
Nemom	V Sivankutty	K Muraleedharan	Kummanam Rajasekharan	O Rajagopal (NDA)
Dharmadam	Pinarayi Vijayan	C. Raghunath	CK Padmanabhan	Pinarayi Vijayan (LDF)
Mattanur	KK Shailaja	Illikkal Agasthy	Biju Elakkuzhi	EP Jayarajan (LDF)
Palakkad	CP Pramod	Shafi Parambil	E Sreedharan	Shafi Parambil (UDF)
Thrissur	P Balachandran	Padmaja Venugopal	Suresh Gopi	VS Sunil Kumar (LDF)
Haripad	R Sajilal	Ramesh Chennithala	K Soman	Ramesh Chennithala (UDF)
Puthuppally	Jaick C Thomas	Oommen Chandy	N Hari	Oommen Chandy(UDF)
Kollam	Mukesh	Bindhu Krishna	M Sunil	Mukesh (LDF)
Konni	KU Jenish Kumar	Robin Peter	K Surendran	KU Jenish Kumar (LDF)
Pala	Jose K Mani	Mani C Kappan	Prameela Devi	Mani C Kappan (then LDF)

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