 "Kerala Assembly Election 2021, Aroor profile: Congress' Shanimol Usman won seat in 2019 bypoll")
Aroor Assembly Election 2021 | The Aroor constituency is a traditional Left stronghold, where Congress is currently in power. KR Gowri Amma, a prominent figure in Kerala’s communist movement, represented the constituency for eight terms. While she was elected to the Assembly in 1967, 1970, 1980, 1982, 1987, and 1991 on a CPM ticket, she won the seat as a Janathipathiya Samrakshana Samithy (JSS) candidate in 1996 and 2001. CPM’s AM Ariff won the subsequent 2006, 2011, and 2016 elections from the constituency. After he was elected to the Alappuzha Lok Sabha seat in 2019, a bypoll was held for Aroor in which Congress leader Shanimol Usman wrested the seat. Usman defeated her nearest rival Manu C Pulickal of the CPM by 2,079 votes. Interestingly, Usman had lost the 2019 Lok Sabha election to Ariff.
Past election results and winners
In the 2019 Aroor bypoll, Congress’ Shanimol Usman garnered 69,356 votes while CPM’s Mani C Pulickal had polled 67,277 votes. BJP candidate Prakash Babu had finished third with 16,289 votes.
Total electors, voter turnout, population
Electors: Aroor has 1,96,105 registered voters who can vote in the upcoming Assembly election. There are 95,723 male voters and 1,00,382 female voters in the constituency. Aroor has 183 polling stations. Voter turnout: The voter turnout in the 2016 Assembly election was 85.43 percent. A total of 1.6 lakh voters of the total 1.88 lakh registered electors cast their vote. Population: The Aroor Assembly constituency comprises Arookutty, Aroor, Chennam-Pallippuram, Ezhupunna, Kodamthuruth, Kuthiathode, Panavally, Perumbalam, Thycattussery and Thuravoor panchayats in Cherthala taluk. As per Census 2011, of Kerala’s 3.34 crore population, 54.73 percent are followers of Hinduism, followed by 26.56 percent followers of Islam and 18.38 percent Christians. Hinduism is the major religion in 13 of the state’s 14 districts. Malappuram is the only district in Kerala where Islam is the major religion with 70.24 percent of the district’s total population following the religion. The state has a tiny population that follows Jainism (0.01 percent), Sikhism (0.01 percent), Buddhism (0.01 percent) and 0.02 percent (other religions). Nearly 0.26 percent in the state didn’t state their religion during the 2011 Census.
Election date and timing
The Kerala Assembly/Niyama Sabha polls will be held on 6 April, 2021 , along with Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. The day will also see phase three polls in Assam and West Bengal. The Kerala Legislative Assembly (Vidhan Sabha) has a total number of 140 seats, of which, 14 seats are reserved for the Scheduled Castes and two seats are reserved for the Scheduled Tribes. The outgoing Assembly has eight female MLAs and rest 132 are male MLAs. The incumbent Kerala Niyamasabha will expire on 1 June, 2021.
Political alliances and Kerala
Elections in Kerala have traditionally been a contest between the UDF and the LDF with power swinging between the two groups. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the Congress-led UDF had won 19 out of the state’s 20 Lok Sabha seats banking on incumbency against the ruling LDF. However, repeating a similar feat in the Assembly polls is going to be an uphill task for the UDF. The LDF has not only managed to overcome anti-incumbency in the 2020 local body polls but also managed to make inroads into UDF votebanks, particularly in Thrissur, Ernakulam, and Kottayam districts. The NDA, which is emerging as a third front in Kerala, will be hoping to increase its tally in the Assembly polls. However, given that the BJP-led NDA didn’t meet the expectations in the 2020 local body polls despite making gains, its ability to impact either the UDF’s or LDF’s prospects in the Assembly election remains unclear. Of the seven Assembly segments that are part of the Kasaragod Parliamentary constituency, five are with the CPM-led LDF (four with CPM, and one with CPI) while IUML, a constituent of the Congress-led UDF, is the second-largest party, winning the remaining two seats (Kasaragod and Manjeshwaram) in the last Assembly polls. BJP didn’t win any of the seven Assembly segments that are part of the Kasaragod Parliamentary constituency in 2016.