Thiruvananthapuram: The LDF could lose Alappuzha, its only seat from the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, predicts the Manorama News-VMR pre-poll survey. The second phase of the survey published on Thursday also appears to favour the Congress-led UDF in the constituencies of Pathanamthitta, Malappuram, Ponnani and Kozhikode while it is a tight contest with the LDF in Vadakara and Chalakudy.
In the first phase published on Wednesday, the Manorama News-VMR pre-poll survey predicted a favourable outcome for the UDF in Thiruvananthapuram, Kasaragod, Wayanad, Thrissur and Kollam.
In Pathanamthitta, the UDF is predicted to win with a vote share of 37.6 per cent while NDA's Anil Antony could relegate LDF's veteran candidate Thomas Isaac to third position.
Alappuzha, the only Left bastion from 2019, could side with the UDF. Going by the survey, UDF's K C Venugopal could wrest power from LDF's A M Ariff with a vote share of 42.18 per cent. Ariff's vote share could see a 3.23 per cent dip which might be fuelled by a gain in the NDA corner, where Shobha Surendran is predicted to get 18.91 per cent votes, an improvement of 1.69 per cent from the 2019 polls.
Malappuram and Ponnani are unlikely to spring a surprise as UDF's IUML candidates E T Mohammed Basheer and Abdussamad Samadani are expected to garner a vote share of 53 and 51 per cent respectively.
In neighbouring Kozhikode, the survey predicts that M K Raghavan could continue in the Lok Sabha even though his vote share is expected to dip by more than 2 per cent. That would give him a little over 43 per cent votes.
Moving to Vadakara, the picture is far from certain as LDF's star candidate K K Shailaja and UDF's popular young politician Shafi Parambil are predicted to get an even 42.05 per cent vote share.
The UDF is expected to sweat a bit in Chalakudy, where Twenty20 could play a crucial role as the survey predicts an 11.8 per cent vote share in its kitty. The gain for Twenty20 could see an erosion of close to 11 per cent from the UDF's share, but the LDF is also expected to see a dip of a little over 2 per cent.
