The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), the largest ally of the Congress in Kerala, has retained the Malappuram parliament seat, winning a by-election by a big margin of 1.7 lakh votes. The BJP, which has been trying to increase its footprint in the state will be disappointed with a small fall in its vote share. The party is still a distant third behind the Left, as it was in the 2014 national election in this seat, but its vote share has come down from 7.59 per cent to 7.1 per cent.
