The vote counting for Kerala’s Palakkad Vidhan Sabha seat is underway. The final results will be available by evening today. On April 6, Palakkad voters went to the polls.
The Palakkad seat is expected to be competitive, with India’s “Metro Man” and BJP candidate E Sreedharan in the race. Experts believe that the entry of technocrat-turned-politician Sreedharan has made Palakkad a hotly contested election.
The joining of Sreedharan, the architect of the country’s metro rail system, into the BJP was widely celebrated among BJP supporters in and out of the state. Sreedharan, the BJP’s undeclared Chief Minister face, is hoped to benefit the party.
The BJP has high hopes in the assembly seat, despite the incumbent MLA Shafi Parambil (Congress) winning a majority of nearly 17,000 votes in the 2016 elections. This is a seat held by the UDF since 2011. BJP is pinning hopes on its increasing vote share in the constituency, which comprises Palakkad Municipality and is one of the two civic bodies in which the BJP is in power in the state.
