Political parties await counting day with bated breath

WITH counting day just a few hours away, all those who led the blistering campaigns for the 20 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala, are awaiting the results with bated breath.

Votes will be counted from 8 am on Tuesday at 20 counting centres where elaborate foolproof arrangements are in place.

One person who will be the cynosure of all eyes would be Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan who led the campaign for the Left in this General Election.

Vijayan would certainly like to forget what happened in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, as the Left which was expecting a good performance, ended up with just one seat.

Though two of the Exit Polls on Saturday night predicted a complete washout, the others said the Left might win up to four or five seats.

The Exit Polls also brought cheer to the BJP which had its best-ever poll campaign, with none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi arriving multiple times to woo the electorate.

The ‘Modi magic’ seems to have worked, as the Exit Polls predicted more than one seat for the BJP.

If that happens, it will be the biggest surprise of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, as the lotus bloomed just once in Kerala in the 2016 Assembly polls, but withered away in the 2021 Assembly elections.

All eyes in the BJP will be focused on the Thiruvananthapuram and Trissur seats.

However, after the Exit Poll results showed that the lotus will bloom this time, the findings were dismissed outright by both the Left and the Congress-led Opposition.

In the 2019 polls, while the Congress-led UDF won 19 seats and secured a vote share of 47.48 per cent, the CPI(M)-led Left Front got just one seat and secured 36.29 per cent votes while the BJP managed a mere 15.64 per cent vote share.

Now, with the ‘Festival of Democracy’ set to end on June 4, the outcomes might see some political leaders running for cover.