Loktantrik Janata Dal (LJD) State president M.V. Shreyams Kumar was on Monday elected to the Rajya Sabha where he will fill the seat that had fallen vacant following the death of his father and former Union Minister M.P. Veerendrakumar.
Mr. Shreyams, who contested the poll as the Left Democratic Front (LDF) candidate against Congress leader Lal Varghese Kalpakavadi of the United Democratic Front (UDF), secured 88 of the 130 votes that were polled.
While Mr. Kalpakavadi garnered 41 votes, one vote was declared invalid. With only 69 first preference votes required for a win, Mr. Shreyams’ victory remained a foregone conclusion.
Polling to the lone seat got under way at 9 a.m. and concluded at 4 p.m. K. Dasan and Anoop Jacob were the first and the last legislators respectively to exercise their franchise. Adhering to the COVID-19 protocol, only one legislator was allowed to enter the polling booth at a time. All members were subjected to COVID-19 test prior to arriving at the Assembly.
While V.S. Achuthanandan, C.F. Thomas, and George M. Thomas abstained from voting for health reasons, those who decided against voting despite being in the State capital were BJP leader O. Rajagopal, and the Kerala Congress (M) legislators Roshy Augustine and N. Jayaraj.
The latter duo, associated with the Jose K. Mani faction of KC(M), defied the whip issued by the P.J. Joseph faction of the party to vote in favour of the UDF. Their abstention is likely to worsen the faction’s ties with the UDF.
