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 media. The health minister of Kerala KK Shailaja -- ‘Shailaja Teacher’ for most malayalees -- was heralded a superstar. The way she handled the Nipah virus 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 political 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 surplus 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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