Parassala Assembly election 2021: Parassala is a small town in Thiruvananthapuram district, located at the border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu at the southern tip of the state. The town is also one of the seven Assembly Constituencies in the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat.

Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s CK Hareendrakumar (alias CK Hareendran) is the sitting MLA in the constituency, which has elected Congress four times in the past five major elections. However, the Assembly election results have swung between the Left party and Opposition Congress.

Parassala will vote on 6 April, 2021 along with 139 other constituencies in the state.

Past election results and winners

In the last Assembly Election, Parassala elected CPM’s Hareendran, a first time MLA with a whopping majority. Hareendran defeated his nearest rival, Congress’ AT George with a margin of more than 18,500 votes.

George had been the sitting MLA since 2011 polls, which he had won against CPM’s Anavoor Nagappan with a meagre 505 votes.

In the 2006 Assembly polls, the seat was captured by R Selvaraj on a CPM’s ticket with a margin of over 4,000 votes. However, Selvaraj had quit the Left party, which he had joined in his student days, in 2012. He is now in the Congress party.

Total electors, voter turnout, population

Electors: As per the final electorate by the Kerala Election Commissioner’s office, Kalpetta has 1.98 lakh registered voters, of whom 97,251 are male and 1,01,347 are female. There will be 187 polling booths in the upcoming Assembly election.

Voter turnout: In the 2016 Assembly election, Parassala witnessed a voter turnout of 75.26 percent. A total of 1.57 lakh (75,631 male and 81,530 female) of over 2 lakh registered voters exercised their franchise.

Population: Parassala comes under the Thiruvananthapuram district. The Parassala Census Town has population of 34,096 of which 16,761 are males while 17,335 are females as per report released by Census India 2011. n Parassala Census Town, Female Sex Ratio is of 1034 against state average of 1084. Literacy rate of Parassala city is 92.12 percent lower than state average of 94.00 percent. In Parassala, Male literacy is around 94.23 percent while female literacy rate is 90.11 percent.

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.

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. 40,771 polling booths will be there for the assembly polls. The counting of the votes is scheduled on 2 May.

The official notification of the Assembly polls in the state is scheduled on 12 March. The nomination of candidates will be accepted from then till 19 March.

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 current Kerala Niyamasabha session will expire on 1 June 2021.

Political alliances in Kerala

The Congress-lead United Democratic Front, currently comprises of Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), Kerala Congress (Joseph), Kerala Congress (Jacob), Revolutionary Socialist Party, Communist Marxist Party (John), All India Forward Bloc, Bharatiya National Janata Dal.

The ruling Left Democratic Front comprises of CPM, CPI, Janata Dal (Secular), Kerala Congress (M), Congress (Secular), Indian National League, Kerala Congress (B), Loktantrik Janata Dal, Janadhipathya Kerala Congress, Kerala Congress (Skaria Thomas), Nationalist Congress Party.

However, a faction of NCP has now severed ties with LDF and allied with the UDF.

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.