The Congress retained Palakkad assembly seat in the by-election, where Youth Congress state president Rahul Mamkoottathil won with a margin of 18,000 votes. Mamkoottathil defeated BJP’s C Krishna Kumar and CPI(M)-backed independent candidate P Sarin, a Congress leader who moved to Left Democratic Front (LDF) after being denied a seat to contest.

The Palakkad bypoll had witnessed tumultuous campaigning, which mainly ran on back-to-back controversies woven mainly around Congress and BJP. All three leading parties — the Congress, the CPI(M) and the BJP — campaigned hard in Palakkad. The Congress has reasons to cheer while the BJP and the CPI(M) have reasons to ponder over the outcome.

The Congress had faced setbacks in Palakkad right from the outset of the bypoll season. Party leader P Sarin raised a revolt over denial of seat and moved to CPI(M), where he became LDF backed independent candidate.

Subsequently, a few other local Congress leaders also left the party, giving a tough time for the Congress leadership. Party leaders were raided late at night for black money. Meanwhile, the UDF election machinery worked well in Palakkad.

Within the Congress, the victory of Mamkoottathil is a victory for Opposition leader V D Satheesan and Congress young MP Shafi Parambil, who led the show on the ground. Mamkoottathil was depicted as a nominee of Parambil, who represented the seat from 2011 and now MP from Vatakara. With Mamkoottathil winning with five-digit majority, Parambil stand remains vindicated within the Congress.

The poll outcome also comes as a setback for the BJP, which hoped to win the seat. The party’s confidence stemmed from many factors. Candidate Krishna Kumar is a popular leader in the district and he had a history of jacking up BJP vote share in all previous contests. Besides, the party has been runner up in the last elections of 2016 and 2021. The third factor that boosted BJP confidence was the recent win in Thrissur Lok Sabha seat. But the party faced a depletion of votes in its stronghold — the BJP-ruled Palakkad municipality.

The outcome is likely to trigger a tumult within the BJP. But the exit of Sandeep Varier in the final lap of the campaign seemed to have impacted the BJP prospects. On its part, BJP leadership had tried to belittle Varier’s exit.

The result will also create repercussions within the CPI(M), which fielded a Congress turncoat as party backed candidate overlooking several meritorious candidates. Palakkad is a CPI(M) citadel, which has a history of electing veterans like A K Gopalan and E K Nayanar to Lok Sabha. Never before had the CPI(M) had opted for an independent candidate from Hindu community in the party’s rampart.

Without highlighting the achievements of the eight-year-old regime of Vijayan government, CPI(M) stressed on the slogan “Sarin is correct”. The controversial advertisement in two Muslim newspapers against BJP leader Sandeep Varier after he joined Congress also seems to have backfired. The CPI(M) faced the criticism that the party has gone for communal polarisation to win Muslim votes.