The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) is likely to see an erosion of more than two per cent votes in the Kozhikode Lok Sabha constituency, the Manorama News-VMR survey predicted.

However, this would not be enough to affect its prospects in the seat held by M K Raghavan. The survey which predicts an increase in vote share of the NDA by 1.29 votes, however, gives an upper hand to the UDF, which is likely to get 43.33 per cent votes. The LDF is expected to garner 38.09 votes and the NDA may muster 16.26 per cent of votes.

Sitting MP M K Raghavan had trounced CPM’s A K Pradeepkumar by a margin of 85, 225 votes in 2019, which also gave him a hat-trick of wins from the seat.

In his maiden electoral foray in 2009, Raghavan had defeated PWD and Tourism minister Mohammed Riyas by a wafer-thin margin of 838 votes. In 2014, when CPM politburo member A Vijaraghavan became the LDF candidate, Raghavan’s victory margin increased to 16,883.

The Manorama New-VMR survey was conducted in March in all the assembly segments which make up the Lok Sabha seats in Kerala. It had 28,000 respondents. The query it posed to potential voters was this: Who would win if elections were to be held today?