In a closely contested battle for the Chirayinkeezhu Assembly constituency in Kerala during the May 2026 elections, Ramya Haridas of the Indian National Congress emerged as the winner. According to the final results, Haridas secured 56,833 votes, defeating her nearest rival, Manoj Edamana of the Communist Party of India, by a slim margin of just 1,422 votes. The Bharatiya Janata Party candidate, BS Anoop, finished third with 32,920 votes. Other contenders, including R Sasi from the Bahujan Samaj Party and Anoop Alappuramkunnu, trailed significantly, while 1,042 voters opted for None of the Above (NOTA).
Chirayinkeezhu is one of the Assembly constituencies in Kerala. The constituency is a SC seat. In the 2021 Assembly Elections, V Sasi from CPI won the seat with a margin of 14,017 votes. V Sasi was polled 62,634 votes with a vote share of 43.17 per cent and defeated BS Anoop from INC who got 48,617 votes (33.51 per cent). In the 2016 Assembly Elections, V Sasi from CPI won the seat and was polled 64,692 votes with a vote share of 46.75 per cent. INC candidate KS Ajith Kumar got 50,370 votes (36.40 per cent) and was the runner-up. V Sasi defeated KS Ajith Kumar by a margin of 14,322 votes.
Meanwhile, Kerala Finance Minister KN Balagopal has secured a narrow victory in the Kottarakkara constituency, as he faced a tough fight from former CPI(M) leader Aisha Potty, who had joined the Congress in January this year.
Balagopal, who got 63,926 votes, won with just a margin of 1,012, against Potty who had won three times consecutively from the Kottarakkara constituency in the 2006, 2011 and 2016 assembly polls as a CPI(M) candidate.
Potty, in 2016, had secured 83,443 votes and won with a margin of over 40,000 votes from the constituency.
In 2021, Balagopal was fielded from the seat and got 68,770 seats, winning by a margin of 10,814. Besides, state PWD and Tourism Minister P A Mohamed Riyas, Balagopal is the only CPI(M) minister to survive the Left rout by the UDF in the Assembly polls.
However, by comparison, three out of the 4 CPI ministers in the second LDF government have healthy leads in the Assembly polls as the counting of votes nears the end. State Animal Husbandry and Dairy Development J Chinchurani, from the CPI, is trailing by over 7,000 votes in her Chadayamangalam constituency as the counting heads into the last round, as per Election Commission data.
