UDF vote base intact compared to last local body elections: Chennithala

Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) [India], December 16 (ANI): Kerala Assembly Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala on Wednesday said that the United Democratic Front (UDF) vote base is intact compared to the last state local body poll outcome.
"Compared with the last local body election, the UDF vote base is intact. Our performance is good. Definitely, the people were expecting a bigger spectacular victory because of the corrupt practices and the anti-people policies of the state government," Chennithala said at a press conference here.
"But one thing is very clear that the local body elections are not based completely on political issues. It is fought on personalities, local issues, local influence, family support etc. All these things are the major factors in the local body election," he added.
Chennithala further said, "We performed better than the last panchayat election. Yes, in the district panchayat our performance was not good but in gram panchayat and municipalities we are ahead. I feel that we have to go into the details of the result. Definitely, UDF will go into the details and where we need we will correct ourselves and march ahead. We will continue to fight against the state government and its anti people policies."
Chennithala further said that BJP has lost its credibility in the local body elections because they made "fake promises".
"BJP has lost its credibility by this election because they made fake promises. Only in one or two municipalities, they have made some mark. Otherwise, they don't have any place in the politics of Kerala," he said.
"As far as Thiruvananthapuram Corporation goes, we will go into the details. Last time also, we were in the third slot. This time our performance is not good. We will study the entire issue and we will try to rectify the whole issue," he added.
He further said, "CPM fielded hundreds of candidates in other symbols to get the votes of others. But we fielded candidates in our symbols. It shows the difference between Congress and CPM."
With counting approaching the final rounds in Kerala local body polls, CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF), while overcoming a host of controversies it faced, was able to outperform Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) and BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
Expected to win Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, NDA finished second with 34 seats, but was able to cause a major upset to Left by trouncing its sitting Mayor candidate K Sreeekumar as well as mayor probable Pushpalatha. Final results saw LDF retaining the Corporation with 51 wards, while UDF saw one of its worst performance by settling with 10 wards. Five independents have won here.
The ruling CPI(M)-led LDF is leading in 516 out of the total 941 gram panchayats, according to the State Election Commission figures. The Congress-led UDF was ahead in 375 gram panchayats while NDA is leading in 22 gram panchayats.
The Kerala local body polls were held in three phases. The first phase saw a turnout of 73.12 per cent, while the second phase saw 76.78 and the third and final phase 78.64 per cent.
A total of 21,893 wards in 1,200 local self-governing bodies, including six corporations, 941 village panchayats, 14 district panchayats and 87 municipalities went to the polls in on December 8, 10 and 14. (ANI)