NDA candidate Rajiv Chandrashekhar has won Nemam, one of the most popular seats in Kerala, by 3800 votes. The contest here was triangular, with LDF's V. Shivankutty and UDF's K.S. Shabarinathan was also in the field. Sivankutty is the Education Minister in the Pinarayi government.
Thiruvananthapuram: NDA candidate Rajeev Chandrashekhar has won the Nemam assembly seat of Kerala. He won this election by a margin of 3800 votes. This time the toughest contest was seen on Nemam seat in the assembly elections. This is the same seat from where BJP opened its account in the Kerala Assembly for the first time.
BJP maintained its lead in Nemam since the counting of votes started. His main rival was V. Sivankutty, who received 39,147 votes. Whereas, Congress candidate K.S. Shabrinathan had to be content with 23,099 votes.
The second Pinarayi government included Education Minister V. Shivankutty, BJP state president Rajiv Chandrashekhar and UDF's K.S. With Shabarinathan entering the field, the contest became triangular. There are 23 wards of the Municipal Corporation in the Nemam Assembly constituency. In the 2025 local body elections, BJP had won power in Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation and had a lead of over 6000 votes in Nemam wards. With this confidence, the party had fielded its own president.
In 2016, O. Rajagopal had opened the account of BJP by winning from this seat. Then UDF ally candidate V. Surendran Pillai got only 9.70% votes. LDF had alleged that UDF votes were transferred to BJP, due to which Rajagopal got 47.46% votes. Whereas, V. Shivankutty got 41.39% votes in 2016. LDF said that instead of fielding a strong candidate, UDF gave ticket to a weak candidate, which benefited BJP.
Three elections have been held in the new Nemam assembly constituency so far, and all three times the LDF has fielded V. Sivankutty as its candidate. In 2011, Shivankutty married O. Rajagopal, but had to face defeat in 2016. This victory of BJP continued to trouble CPM for five years. However, in 2021, Sivankutty closed the account of BJP by defeating Kummanam Rajasekharan. The lead in the last local body elections was the biggest hope of BJP.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who stood second in Thiruvananthapuram in the Lok Sabha elections, did not need any special introduction in Nemam. Political analysts believe that if Congress had contested the first two elections instead of giving this seat to its ally, the results could have been different. When UDF, which got 17.4% votes in 2011 and 9.7% in 2016, contested the seat itself in 2021, its vote share increased to 25%.
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