Kerala Assembly Election 2021, Ettumanoor profile: CPM’s Suresh Kurup won second term in 2016

Ettumanoor Assembly Election 2021 | The Ettumanoor Assembly constituency is located in the Kottayam district of Kerala.

The seat is currently held by CPM’s Suresh Kurup, who is serving his second term as the legislator.

Kurup, however, is not in the fray for the 2021 Assembly election.

The CPM has fielded VN Vasvan from the seat as an LDF candidate. He will up against TN Harikumar of the BJP, Ijith K Joy of the BSP, AG Ajayakumar of the Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) and Advocate Prince Lukose who is contesting as a candidate of the breakaway PJ Joseph faction of Kerala Congress under the UDF banner.

Past election results and winners

Kurup first won the seat in 2011 by defeating then sitting MLA Thomas Chazhikadan of Kerala Congress (M) by 1,801 votes.

In the 2016 election, Kurup had retained the Ettumanoor seat with 53,805 votes. KC(M) runner-up Thomas Chazhikadan had polled 44,906 votes while BDJS nominee AG Thankappan got 27,540 votes.

Chazhikadan, who is now the Kottayam Lok Sabha MP, had won the seat four times: in 1991, 1996, 2001, and 2006.

Total electors, voter turnout, population

Electors:

Ettumanoor has 1,64,769 registered voters who can vote in the upcoming Assembly election. There are 80,590 male voters, 84,177 female voters and two third-gender voters in the constituency. The constituency has 165 polling stations.

Voter turnout:
The voter turnout in the 2016 Assembly election was 79.69 percent. A total of 1.31 lakh voters of the total 1.64 lakh registered electors cast their vote.

Population:
The Ettumanoor Assembly constituency comprises Aymanam, Arpookara, Athirampuzha, Ettumanoor, Kumarakom, Neendoor and Thiruvarppu panchayats in Kottayam taluk.

As per Census 2011, of Kerala's 3.34 crore population, 54.73 percent are followers of Hinduism, followed by 26.56 percent followers of Islam and 18.38 percent Christians. Hinduism is the major religion in 13 of the state's 14 districts.
Malappuram is the only district in Kerala where Islam is the major religion with 70.24 percent of the district's total population following the religion.

The state has a tiny population that follows Jainism (0.01 percent), Sikhism (0.01 percent), Buddhism (0.01 percent) and 0.02 percent (other religions). Nearly 0.26 percent in the state didn't state their religion during the 2011 Census.

Election date and timing

The Kerala Assembly/Niyama Sabha polls will be held on 6 April, 2021, along with Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. The day will also see phase three polls in Assam and West Bengal.

The Kerala Legislative Assembly (Vidhan Sabha) has a total number of 140 seats, of which, 14 seats are reserved for the Scheduled Castes and two seats are reserved for the Scheduled Tribes.

The outgoing Assembly has eight female MLAs and rest 132 are male MLAs. The incumbent Kerala Niyamasabha will expire on 1 June, 2021.

Political alliances and Kerala

Elections in Kerala have traditionally been a contest between the UDF and the LDF with power swinging between the two groups.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the Congress-led UDF had won 19 out of the state’s 20 Lok Sabha seats banking on incumbency against the ruling LDF. However, repeating a similar feat in the Assembly polls is going to be an uphill task for the UDF.

The LDF has not only managed to overcome anti-incumbency in the 2020 local body polls but also managed to make inroads into UDF votebanks, particularly in Thrissur, Ernakulam, and Kottayam districts.

The NDA, which is emerging as a third front in Kerala, will be hoping to increase its tally in the Assembly polls. However, given that the BJP-led NDA didn't meet the expectations in the 2020 local body polls despite making gains, its ability to impact either the UDF's or LDF's prospects in the Assembly election remains unclear.

Of the seven Assembly segments that are part of the Kasaragod Parliamentary constituency, five are with the CPM-led LDF (four with CPM, and one with CPI) while IUML, a constituent of the Congress-led UDF, is the second-largest party, winning the remaining two seats (Kasaragod and Manjeshwaram) in the last Assembly polls.

BJP didn't win any of the seven Assembly segments that are part of the Kasaragod Parliamentary constituency in 2016.