A broad front sweeps to power
What happened
A broad alliance returned to power here, this time with a commanding majority of seats.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) alone won 52 of the 133 seats.
Together with its allied parties, it controlled 104 seats in all — well past the mark needed to govern.
Its closest individual rival, the Communist Party of India, won just 19.
What changed
New parties broke into the assembly for the first time this election, widening the field of contestants.
MUL and KEC both won seats here for the first time.
Together, its alliance — a group of parties that team up to fight an election together, and share power afterward if they win enough seats between them — took 78.2% of the seats, a scale of victory well beyond a simple majority.
Notable numbers
A few numbers from that election stand out.
Kasargod, Keralam saw the tightest finish, decided by just 95 votes — the margin, how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second.
Mankada, Keralam had the widest margin of the night, at 66.3% of the vote.
Mannarghat, Keralam recorded the lowest turnout — the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot — at 48.4%.
Udumbanchola, Keralam had the most registered voters of any constituency, 85,709 in all.
The backdrop
This result echoed an earlier communist-led government here, though under a different coalition banner this time.
Polling for Kerala's first Legislative Assembly election ran 28 February-11 March 1957. The Communist Party of India emerged as the largest party, and E. M. S. Namboodiripad was sworn in as Chief Minister on 5 April 1957 with independents' support -- one of the first democratically elected communist governments in the world, after San Marino.