Elections 2014: BJP fails to open account in Kerala

KOCHI: Kerala has emerged the only major state where Congress has emerged on top, with the party-led United Democratic Front winning 12 out of 20 seats. The state also elected maximum number of Left candidates with CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) winning eight seats.

Senior leader O Rajagopal came very close to becoming the first BJP leader to win a parliamentary seat in Kerala, holding lead several times before losing out to Congress’ Shashi Tharoor by 14,501 votes in Thiruvananthapuram.

For both Congress and CPM, Kerala was the only consolation with Congress taking a drubbing across the country and Left losing heavily to Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress in West Bengal.

Though most of the Congress ministers have lost nationally, all the central ministers from the state — Shashi Tharoor, Kodikunnil Suresh, K C Venugopal, K V Thomas, E Ahmed and Mullappally Ramachandran — have been reelected. The prominent losers in the state are P C Chacko (Congress), former Union minister M P Veerendra Kumar (Socialist Janatha–Democratic), K Sudhakaran (Congress) and CPM polit bureau member MA Baby.