LDF unseats BJP in ward by-poll

Kasaragod, Jan 6: Communist Party of India (CPI) nominee won the by-election in ward No. 11 (Majbayal) of the Meenja grama panchayat wresting the seat from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Shantarama Shetty won by 133 votes where BJP nominee Yashoda Alva had won the seat by seven votes in the 2015 polls.

UDF nominee Hassan Kunhi of the IUML relegated to the third spot, garnered a mere 17 votes.

Death of candidate

The by-election was necessitated following the demise of Yashoda Alva even before the poll results were announced.

While Shantarama Shetty polled 542 votes, his immediate BJP rival Chandrahasa Alva, husband of Yashoda, could secure only 409 votes.

Shantharam Shetty, an apparent namesake of the CPI nominee, could muster only seven votes.

Of the total 1,132 electorates, 975 voters exercised their franchise in the by-election held on Wednesday.

UDF holds mantle

The 2015 local body polls saw the UDF, with seven members, holding the mantle of the 15-member governing body as the BJP with five members and LDF with three were in the opposition.

The by-poll outcome put the LDF and the BJP getting four seats each.

Upset over the shocking defeat, BJP sources here accused the UDF of making deliberate efforts to switch over their votes to the LDF nominee to ensure the defeat of the BJP, which had won the last elections with a slender seven-vote margin.

The UDF, holding mantle of the panchayat, had cross-voted around 160 votes in favour of the LDF and the marginal 17 votes secured by the IUML nominee was a clear pointer to the tacit poll tie-up, BJP district president K. Sreekanth said in a statement here.