LS POLLS

Manorama News-VMR survey: UDF stares at massive vote erosion in Idukki. Will this benefit LDF?

The United Democratic Front (UDF) is staring at a massive vote erosion in the Idukki Lok Sabha constituency, considered its bastion, a Manorama News-VMR pre-poll survey revealed.

Last time, when UDF candidate Dean Kuriakose won a landslide victory, the Congress candidate’s vote share was 54.23 per cent. This is likely to nosedive to 40.69 per cent, the survey predicted.

The LDF vote share too is likely to fall 1.34 per cent to 34.26.

The NDA is seen making significant gains in the Lok Sabha constituency, with a surge in vote share from 8.56 per cent to 18.5 per cent– a boost of a massive 9.95 per cent.

Independents and other parties are also likely to increase their total share to five per cent, according to the Manorama News-VMR survey.

The votes which the UDF is expected to lose are likely going to the NDA kitty. This is likely to be the Christian votes which are swaying to the BJP fold.

As per the survey, the NDA is projected to make maximum gains in terms of vote share in the Idukki constituency.

Dean Kuriakose, who was defeated in his electoral debut in 2014 by Joyce George, had trounced the latter by a huge margin of over 1,75,000 votes in 2019. Dean got 4,98,493 votes while Joyce garnered 3,27,440 votes. BDJS candidate Biju Krishnan gathered just 78,648 votes.

This time also the main contest is between Dean and Joyce. Sangeetha Vishwanathan is the BDJS candidate in Idukki.

The Manorama News-VMR survey was conducted in March in all the assembly segments of the state, which falls in the 20 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala. It had 28,000 respondents. The query the survey posed to potential voters was this: Who would win if elections were to be held today?