Thiruvananthapuram, June 26 (IANS) After registering a striking win in the Nilambur Assembly polls, Aryadan Shoukath will take oath as a legislator on Friday at the Kerala Legislative Complex by Speaker A.N. Shamsheer.

With Shoukath’s victory, the tally of the Congress-led UDF reached 42 in the 140-member Kerala Assembly.

Shoukath defeated former CPI(M) legislator M.Swaraj with a margin of over 11,000 votes when votes were counted on Monday.

With this, Shoukath is finally getting back to the famed Assembly where his Late father, Congress leader Aryadan Mohammed, registered a record eight times from the same constituency.

Shoukath, for the first time, contested the 2016 Assembly polls when his father, Mohammed, retired from active politics. But he lost to P.V. Anvar, an Independent candidate supported by the Left.

Anvar repeated his win in the 2021 polls, but in January this year, he quit as a legislator after a serious difference of opinion with Chief Minister Pinarayi.

He initially pledged his support to the Congress party. But when the name of Shoukath was announced, Anvar slammed the decision and announced his candidature too, leaving both the Congress and the Left camp perplexed.

Anvar surprised many after securing over 19,000 votes in the bypolls.

At the CPI(M) state secretariat meeting held here to discuss the bypoll loss, it admitted that Anvar’s leaving the camp was one of the primary reasons for the defeat.

Veteran Congress legislator Ramesh Chennithala said the victory of Shoukath is the beginning of the end of the Vijayan regime that began in 2016.

“This victory is a gift to the way the entire Congress-led UDF leadership and its cadres worked hard in Nilambur,” said Chennithala and added that he did his best to take Anvar along with the UDF, but it did not happen.

Meanwhile, preparations are on at Shoukath’s camp for the Friday oath ceremony and the subsequent felicitations.

–IANS

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