Thrissur is witnessing a high-profile, three-cornered fight among UDF’s Congress candidate Padmaja Venugopal, NDA’s BJP nominee actor – cum politician Suresh Gopi and LDF’s CPI candidate P Balachandran.
In the 2016 Assembly elections current agriculture minister .V S Sunilkumar of CPI won from this seat beating Padmaja Venugopal of the Congress by a margin of 6,987 votes.
Thrissur has traditionally been a Congress bastion, after INC’s Therambil Ramakrishnan won five consecutive terms as MLA from the Assembly constituency.
Therambil enjoyed thumping victories from 1991 until 2011. This trend was disrupted only after CPI’s Sunil Kumar won in 2016. This time around, Sunil Kumar is not contesting the elections. Instead, P Balachandran is in the fray as CPI nominee.
The LDF leaders said the goodwill created by the LDF government through welfare schemes will reflect in the EVMs and Balachandran will win the seat.
Congress candidate Padmaja Venugopal, daughter of former CM K Karunakaran, is a familiar face in Trissur and Congress leaders say political equations in the constituency at present is in favour of the UDF and Padmaja would definitely wrest the seat from CPI this time.
The entry of actor-cum-politician Suresh Gopi in the election fray has changed the entire proposition of the polls for both UDF and LDF in Thrissur. It is a fact that Suresh Gopi is making waves in the constituency and it cannot be said now whether this wave will turn into votes.