TRIVANDRUM, 28 September 2005 — The ruling Congress party and its allies suffered yet another electoral setback yesterday when the opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) swept all the 14 districts except the Muslim League bastion of Malappuram in the keenly fought civic polls that closed Monday in Kerala.
The United Democratic Front (UDF) had lost all but one of the 20 seats in the parliamentary polls held last year. However, it has succeeded in retaining nearly 30 percent of the seats in the local self-governments.
Interestingly, it was a clean sweep for the LDF in the urban areas where the polling went down to below 50 percent. It won all the five city corporations, retaining four and wresting one from the Congress party.
The LDF has also won 30 municipal councils leaving 12 to the UDF and 10 to a fractured verdict. The LDF wrested five from the UDF while conceding two it won last time.
Former Chief Minister K. Karunakaran’s breakaway Democratic Indira Congress-K, which reached local-level adjustments with the Communist Party of India-Marxist, also put up an impressive performance.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), considered untouchable by both fronts, has also opened its account in a big way, leading in Palghat municipal council and coming second in at least 20 wards of the Trivandrum city corporation pushing the UDF to the third. Its state unit president P.S. Sreedharan Pillai claimed victory in at least 100 seats in the city councils.
