PALAKKAD: BJP candidate C Krishna Kumar has not been able to come close to the lead of 6,000 votes garnered by E Sreedharan in the assembly elections in 2021 from Palakkad and not only that he has been relegated to the second position in the municipality. C K has an upper hand of just 400 votes when the votes are counted in BJP strongholds in the municipal council. When all the votes were counted in the city, Rahul came first. The BJP could not make surge even in their strongholds.

Knowing the pulse of city voters, C Krishna Kumar, who was in the helm to capture the BJP rule in the Palakkad Municipal Corporation, did not even get the votes he got from the city in the Lok Sabha elections months ago. The counting of votes showed that the votes received by E Sreedharan were shared by Rahul Mamkootathil and P Sarin above politics. Rahul grabbed majority of these votes.

As the counting of votes in the municipal council progressed, C Krishna Kumar could not take his lead above 1500 even at one stage. CK's biggest lead after postal votes and first two rounds of EVMs was 1418. There is no coming back for the BJP. In Piriyari, Kannadi and Mathur, the contest is between the LDF and the UDF. As soon as votes started counting in panchayats, Rahul's lead was over 10,000.

When Shafi Parambil and E Sreedharan faced each other, the Palakkad city awarded BJP a lead of 6238 votes. Out of 52 wards, 28 have BJP councilors. UDF has 18 councilors and LDF has six. The BJP, which had a lead of more than 6,000 votes in 2021, got a lead of just 497 votes from the municipal assembly when Krishna Kumar contested for the Lok Sabha months ago.

E Sreedharan got 34,143 votes in the urban area, but Krishna Kumar got only 29,355 votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. BJP could have won the constituency only if they get a lead of 7000-8000 votes in city area. Along with this, the CPM, which is more than ten thousand votes behind the other fronts in the urban area, has little chance of overcoming it from the votes in the rural areas. Therefore, Rahul’s win in the constituency is sure.