Kerala Assembly election 2021, Nemom profile: BJP, CPM, Congress field veterans as contest heats up in lone saffron seat

Nemom Assembly Election 2021 | Nemom is an Assembly constituency in the Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala. It falls under the Thiruvananthapuram Parliamentary constituency. The election to the state will be held on  6 April and results will be out on 2 May.

Nemom is politically important because it was the first seat in the Left bastion which elected a BJP representative since Independence.

O Rajagopal of the BJP is the sitting MLA of this constituency. He had defeated the sitting CPM MLA and senior CPM leader V Sivankutty in the 2016 polls by a margin of 8,671 votes.

The CPM has fielded Sivankutty again to reclaim the seat. However, the BJP has dropped Rajagopal from the constituency and has instead fielded former Mizoram governor and BJP Kerala president Kummanam Rajasekharan from the seat.

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The Congress, which came third in the 2016 polls, has fielded K Muraleedharan from the seat. Also, in the fray from the seat are: BSP’s D Vijayan, and Independent candidates Jain Wilson, Balachandran Valkannadi, Muraleedharan Nair, Rajasekharan, Arampaly Vijayaraj, Shine Raj B and L Sathyan Nadar.

Past election and results

Nemom is currently represented by O Rajagopalan of the BJP, who was the first-ever candidate from the party to win a seat in Kerala. He won the 2016 votes by a margin of 8,671 votes against CPM senior leader Sivankutty. He had also unsuccessfully contested the general elections from Thiruvananthapuram against Tharoor, in 2014 but had lost by 13,000 votes.

Rajagopalan has been active in the state’s politics for a long time and had contested general elections unsuccessfully thrice since 1999. He had also contested the 2011 assembly polls from Nemon and finished second. In a 2012 by-election in Neyyatinkara, he secured more than 30,000 votes but could not win.

Up until 2004, the BJP’s vote share in Kerala had not gone beyond 6 percent. Even when the Modi wave hit India in 2014, in Kerala the Congress and Left swept the Lok Sabha polls, winning 8 seats and 5 seats respectively. The BJP did not win a single seat from the state in 2014.

However, in the 2016 Assembly polls, the NDA managed to win 15 percent of the vote share. It has since stagnated, with the party getting 15.56 percent votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and 15.5 percent in the 2020 Kerala local body elections.

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 vote-banks, 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.

In the local body polls, however, the people have shown a clear preference towards the CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF). Since 1979, only once, in 2010, has the United Democratic Front (UDF) upset the apple cart.

Total electors, voter turnout, population

Electors: According to the  Election Commission of India, the total number of registered electors in the state is 2,67,31,509, including 1,29,52,025 male, 1,37,79,263 female and 211 third gender voters.

In the  district of Thiruvananthapuram alone, there are 27,69,272 voters of which 13,15,905 are male and 14,53,310 are female. There are 57 third-gender voters in the district.

The Nemom constituency has 2,00,505 registered voters ahead of the 2021 elections of which 97,106 are male and 1,03,392 are female. Seven voters have identified themselves as third gender.

Voter Turnout: The overall voter turnout during the 2016 Assembly election was 77.35 percent. The percentage voter turnout of women voters excluding the postal ballot was 75.97 percent and that of men voters excluding postal ballot was 78.14 percent.

At least 74.11 percent of registered voters had come out to vote in the Nemom Assembly constituency, of which 75.13 percent were male and 73.15 percent were females.

Population and demography: Total population of Thiruvananthapuram district is 3,301,427 as per census 2011. Hinduism constitutes 66.46 percent of Thiruvananthapuram population. Muslims are in minority in Thiruvananthapuram district, forming 13.72 percent of the total population here.

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 current Kerala Niyamasabha session will expire on 1 June, 2021.