Ponnani: The ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) has made inroads into the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) bastion of Ponnani, the ManoramaNews-VMR exit polls revealed. While the UDF kitty was poorer by 4 per cent votes, the LDF gained 5.32 per cent votes. The NDA also added 2.4 per cent more votes to its previous tally.
The IUML had relocated Abdussamad Samadani from Malappuram to Ponnani to replace E T Mohammed Basheer in the Lok Sabha seat. The CPM had fielded former IUML leader K S Hamsa and that seems to have done the trick and boosted its vote share if exit poll findings are to go by.
The BJP candidate is Advocate Niveditha.
Samadani is likely to get 47.3 per cent votes while the LDF candidate will secure 37.61 per cent. The BJP’s vote share also may go up to 12.91 per cent.
The UDF had got 51.29 per cent votes in the 2019 LS poll and the LDF’s figure was 32.29 per cent. In 2019, E T Mohammad Basheer, who got 5,21,824 votes, trounced P V Anwar (3,28,551) by a margin of 1,93,273 votes. BJP candidate Rema had got 1,10,603 votes.