Maintaining the lead from the beginning of counting, Indian Union Muslim League National President and Union Minister of state for External Affairs, E Ahamed, registered a thumping win over the CPI-M candidate P K Sainaba of the LDF, thereby retaining his Malappuram seat.
Ahamed defeated Sainaba by over 1.90 lakh votes.
Seventysix-year old Ahamed, who was seeking his seventh innings to parliament, never faced any threat from his opponents, when counting of votes began, as he maintained the lead from the beginning and kept on increasing it to finally register a thumping win from the constituency, a stronghold of the party.
Sainaba, a prominent leader of All India Democratic Women Organisation, was expected to re-write the electoral history of Malappuram, but the veteran IUML leader, who had fought many an electoral battle, had the last laugh.
An elated Ahamed said "it is party's and party leadership's victory."
Ahamed had represented Malappuram and Ponnani parliamentary constituencies six times in the past.
In the last election, Ahamed won the constituency by a margin of 115597 votes over T K Hamza of CPI(M).
