From rxpgnews.com
LDF narrowly wins Kerala seat
By RxPG News Service,
Dec 8, 2006 - 12:20:04 AM
Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 7 - Kerala's ruling Left Democratic Front - narrowly won the Thiruvambady assembly seat Thursday, with Chief Minister V.S. Atchthanandan admitting the result reflected poorly on his government.
Communist Party of India-Marxist's - George M. Thomas scraped through by 246 votes over nearest rival V.M. Ummer Master of the Indian Union Muslim League -, a member of the opposition United Democratic Front -.
Thomas bagged 64,112 votes and Ummer 63,866 votes while the Bharatiya Janata Party's Gireesh Thevally secured 4,758 valuable votes.
The victory hardly brought any cheer to the LDF, which had only seven months earlier bagged the same seat in Kozhikode by over 5,000 votes when Mathai Chacko won. Chacko died of cancer, resulting in the Dec 4 by-election.
In his reaction, Achuthanandan said the result clearly showed that the quality of governance needed to be improved.
'The margin of victory is an indication that the speed of my government's functioning has to be stepped up, and it will be done. Likewise we will also speed up the inquiries into various corruption cases,' he said.
The verdict also threw up a debate on the usefulness of former chief minister K. Karunakaran, who has merged his party with LDF ally Nationalist Congress Party but who the Left detests.
'Maybe the LDF would have got a higher majority if we did not have the support of Karunakaran,' said Communist Party of India - state secretary Veliyam Bharghavan.
Achuthanandan aired similar views. 'I don't think the voters have taken the role played by Karunakaran and NCP -.'
But Pinnarayi Vijayan, the state secretary CPI-M, disagreed. 'Both Karunakaran and NCP gave us enough support and helped us,' he said.
On his part, Karunakaran said the outcome showed the NCP cannot be ignored.
'I do not see this victory as an endorsement of the Achuthanandan government because it was more an emotional election after the death of CPI-M legislator Mathai Chacko,' said the veteran.
The Muslim League put up a brave face despite the loss. P.K. Kunhalikutty, the League strongman, said: 'A look at the victory margin clearly shows that we have gone forward in a big way.'
UDF convenor P.P. Thankachen called it 'a technical victory' for LDF.
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