Rival fronts optimistic about poll outcome in Kozhikode

LDF says it will retain sitting seats while UDF is confident of upsetting apple cart of CPI(M)

With barely two days left for the counting of votes of the Assembly polls, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) are optimistic about their performances in 13 Assembly constituencies in Kozhikode district. Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] leaders say that the Left front will retain all its sitting seats as well as wrest the Kuttiyadi and Kozhikode South Assembly segments. The achievements of the LDF government and the performance of its legislators in the past five years were in the minds of the electorate, P. Mohanan, CPI(M) district secretary, says. CPI(M) functionaries were also confident about their electioneering work despite some political unrest in the local cadre over allotting the Kuttiyadi seat to the Kerala Congress (M) initially. The party finally fielded former Kozhikode district panchayat president K.P. Kunhammed Kutty to fight the polls in Kuttiyadi. In the 2016 polls, Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) nominee Parakkal Abdulla had won the seat by a margin of 1,157 votes.