Hat-trick victory for Vijayan in Nadapuram

UDF puts up a strong fight in constituency

E.K. Vijayan, incumbent Communist Party of India (CPI) MLA from Nadapuram Assembly seat in Kozhikode district, continued his winning streak, though with a reduced margin of votes, when the final results were announced on Sunday evening. Of the total 1,75,671 votes polled, Mr. Vijayan, the Left Democratic Front candidate, got 80,287 votes while his United Democratic Front rival and Congress leader K. Praveen Kumar bagged 76,902 votes, thus getting a majority of 3,385 votes. M.P. Rajan of the National Democratic Alliance won 10,290 votes. In the 2016 polls, Mr. Vijayan’s margin of victory against Mr. Kumar was 4,749 votes. Since 1970, only CPI candidates have won from here and this is the third time Mr. Vijayan, a former district secretary of the party, is getting elected. Though it was earlier reported that the CPI would not give ticket to two-time legislators, the party relaxed the norm to allow one more term to them. Mr. Kumar had stayed put in Nadapuram even after his defeat in 2016 and it looks like he has given a tough fight to the CPI leader, considering the decline in the victory margin.