Congress' Shahnawaz is sixth time lucky in Kerala

Thiruvananthapuram, May 16 (IANS) Congress candidate M.I. Shahnawaz Saturday saw his first win in six elections. He won in style from north Kerala's newly-constituted Wayanad constituency with 153,490 votes - the highest margin in the state.

Shahnawaz has in the past contested thrice for the assembly and twice in the Lok Sabha elections, all ending in defeat.

'I am really delighted by this win. I owe this to the people who worked for me and for all those who voted for me,' said 58-year-old Shahnawaz.

With all the results out, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) has won a record 16 seats and the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in four of the state's 20 Lok Sabha constituencies.

The LDF had won 19 of the 20 seats in 2004, with the lone UDF victor being Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) candidate E. Ahamed from Ponnani.

Four of the UDF candidates had a victory margin of over 100,000 votes, while the biggest margin for the LDF was at Kasargode when sitting MP P. Karunakaran won by 64,427 votes.

At Malappuram, Minister for State for External Affairs E. Ahamed won by a margin of 115,569 votes, Shashi Tharoor (Thiruvananthapuram) 100,045 and Anto Antony (Pathanamthitta) 111,206.

Congress candidate M.K. Raghavan won the Kozhikode seat, but he scraped through with the lowest margin in the state with just 838 votes.

The winning LDF candidates - all of them from the CPI-M barring Karunakaran - have a victory margin of less than 21,000 votes.

At Alathur, P.K. Biju won by a margin of 20,960, A. Sampath won by 17,660 in Attingal, and M.P. Rajesh was victorious by 1,820 votes in Palakkad.

null