Former minister K B Ganesh Kumar has alleged that a political understanding existed between the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Pathanapuram constituency during the recent assembly elections. He claimed that votes were deliberately transferred from the BJP to the UDF candidate, citing voting patterns from previous elections to support his assertion.
Allegations on Social Media
Ganesh Kumar raised the allegation in a Facebook post, where he also claimed that the participation of the Twenty20 party in Pathanapuram was part of the alleged arrangement between the UDF and BJP. According to him, similar political deals were witnessed in the three constituencies won by the BJP. He pointed out that in all three seats where the BJP emerged victorious, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) finished as the runner-up, while the Congress was pushed to the third position. He added that the BJP secured victory in those constituencies by narrow margins.
Vote Transfer Evidence
The former minister argued that the Congress failed to secure even the level of votes it received in previous parliamentary and local body elections in those constituencies. This, according to him, indicated a coordinated transfer of votes. Referring specifically to Pathanapuram, Ganesh Kumar provided detailed figures: the BJP candidate Bheeman Raghu secured 11,700 votes in the 2016 assembly election, while the BJP candidate polled 12,398 votes in the 2021 election. He further claimed that the BJP alone received nearly 23,000 votes from the constituency in the 2025 local body elections.
"Despite BJP winning three seats in the state this time, the party secured only 7,031 votes in Pathanapuram. Moreover, the NDA candidate there belonged to the Twenty20 party, which has no significant organisational presence in the constituency," Ganesh Kumar alleged. The former minister's comments have sparked a political debate, with the UDF and BJP denying any such understanding.
