Kochi: Congress candidate Uma Thomas continued to maintain a lead with over 12,000 votes, while the CPI-M conceded defeat at the end of the sixth round as counting of votes for the May 31 Thrikkakara bypoll got underway on Friday.
While interacting with the media at the Ernakulam district committee office of the CPI-M, district secretary C.V.Mohan termed the development "unexpected".
"We never expected this, but we humbly accept the people's verdict. With the kind of efforts we put in this should not have happened. We have to analyse where we went wrong," he added.
10:15 am Congress candidate Uma Thomas maintained a lead with over 6,000 votes against CPI-M's Joe Joseph in the third round as counting of votes began on Friday for the May 31 Thrikkakara by-election.
Her late husband P.T.Thomas had got a lead of 3,000 votes in the April 2021 Assembly polls in the same round and Uma has doubled it.
Celebrations have already started in the Congress camp. Voices could also heard against K.V.Thomas who switched over to the Left.
Though in between, the intense campaigning by the CPI-M led by Vijayan along with his full cabinet and over 75 legislators, did seem to unnerve Congress briefly.
There are 11 rounds of counting and both Uma and Joseph are extremely confident of winning, while the BJP veteran A.N.Radhakrishnan till voting ended on May 31st expressed hopes that he will win, that scenario changed on Thursday when he said he will get more votes what the BJP candidate secured at the 2021 Assembly polls.
The first Congress-led UDF leader who announced that the initial trends show that Uma is heading for a big win was Indian Union Muslim League veteran P.K.Kunhalikutty said this is clear verdict against the Vijayan government.
"This was what CPI-M state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said during the campaign that the result would be an assessment of the Vijayan government," said Kunhalikutty.
The election was neccesitated by the sudden demise of two-time Thrikkakara's Congress legislator P.T.Thomas in December last year.
While many expected the turnout to be the highest ever since the constituency came into being 2011, when polling ended it turned out to be the least ever with 68.77 per cent only casting their votes.
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