Counting on March 21, fronts pin hope on record

KOCHI: With the fates of candidates sealed in ballot boxes, both the LDF and the UDF were confident of a victory in the prestigious bypoll for the Piravom assembly constituency.
Election results will be announced on Wednesday, March 21.Both the fronts claimed that the high poll percentage would favour them. LDF candidate M J Jacob, who lost to the late T M  J Jacob in the 2011 elections by a slender margin  of 157 votes, said he was confident of regaining the seat.  However, he did not say if the higher poll percentage could help the LDF. “I’m one among the people and they know me very well. I have been with  them for many decades. I’m sure that they will give me a chance,”  he said.

Anoop Jacob of the UDF, comparatively a novice in electoral politics, expressed the same confidence. “As the poll percentage is high, the UDF anticipates a huge victory. There are no undercurrents and we are confident of creating history in Piravom,” he said.
The pre-poll campaigns have witnessed bitter war of words between the two major fronts, and more often, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Opposition Leader VS Achuthanandan, lashed out at each other
with grave allegations, making the bypoll more of a prestige issue for the two leaders.
The election was also seen as a litmus test for the nine-month-old Chandy Government and the development activities carried out by it.
Chandy had proclaimed that the election would be a referendum on the performance of his government. And Achuthanandan had said that the people would teach the present government a lesson for its ‘anti-people activities’ during the last nine months.
 Though the top-rung leadership was fighting over the government’s performance, the candidates mostly had focused on the developmental activities in the constituency.
The Christian vote bank was also expected to be a decisive factor in the bypoll. Though the Jacobite faction had not come out openly supporting any of the front, it is learned that the Jacobites had leaned towards Anoop Jacob. In fact, the Jacobite faction had demanded to field  Daisy Jacob, wife of the late T M Jacob, as the UDF candidate.
The BJP’s stand was also seen to be crucial as its candidate M N Madhu had polled 4,234 votes in the last elections. Political pundits also say that the votes of the BJP could drain this time as the party had not been in the scene right from the beginning of the campaigning.