Four sitting MLAs retain seats in Kasargod district

 The Muslim League (UDF) retained Manjeshwar and Kasargod seats in the election held for the Kerala state Legislative Assembly and the LDF candidates won the remaining three seats --- Uduma, Kanhangad and Trikaripura --- in the district.

The votes cast in the assembly election were counted and the results were declared on Monday.

P B Abdul Razak won the Manjeshwar seat and N A Nel likunnu (Muslim League) won the Kasargod seat.

K Kunhiraman and E Chandrasekharan won in Uduma  Kanhangad constituencies. Interestingly, all the four were sitting MLAs.

In Trikaripura, M Rajagopalan of the CPM has won the election.
Muslim League candidate Nellikunnu defeated his arch rival Kuntaru Raveesh Thantri by 8,607 votes and proved that Kasargod is its strong forte. Nellikunnu polled 64,727 votes, Thanthri polled 56,120 votes and Dr A A Ameen (Independent) managed to secure only 21,615 votes.

In Uduma, Kunhiraman managed to win the election for the second con secutive time.
He defeated the Congress (UDF) candidate K Sudhakaran by 3,832 votes. Kunhiraman secured 70,679 votes and Sudhakaran had to contend with only 66,847 votes. K Srikanth of the BJP secured 21,231 votes.

In Kanhangad, senior politician and sitting MLA Chandrasekharan (CPM) has retained the seat with a huge margin of over 26,000 votes. While Chandrasekharan polled 80,558 votes, Dhanya Suresh managed to ­secure only 54,547 votes and Raghavan polled only 21,104 votes.

In Trikaripura, which is the stronghold of CPI(M), M Rajagopalan won with a margin of 16,348 votes. While Rajagopalan secured 78,779 votes, K P Kunhikannan (Congress) polled 61,931 votes and M P Raghavan (NDA) polled only 10,797 votes.

Razak defeats BJP’s Surendran by 89 votes

Muslim League candidate P B Abdul Razak and his arch rival Surendran, also the Kerala BJP state secretary, maintained a thin margin since the counting of votes started on Thursday. Both Razak and Surendran were leading and trailing in different rounds of counting. Finally, Razak had the last laugh as he secured 89 votes more than Surendran.
Razak (Muslim League) polled 56,870 votes, K Surendran (BJP) had to contend with 56,781 votes and C H Kunhambu (CPM) had to be satisfied with 42,565 votes.

As Surendran demanded recounting of votes, the votes were counted again. But there was no difference in the result. Hence, the BJP’s hope to open an account in Manjeshwar was dashed.

Many BJP leaders from Karnataka, including MP Nalin Kumar Kateel, had campaigned for the BJP candidate in the region. But the efforts went in vain.