NEW DELHI: In Kerala’s Ranni, INC’s Pazhakulam Madhu emerged as the winner, defeating Kerala Congress’ Pramod Narayan by 4,334 votes. Pazhakulam Madhu received 54,652 votes, while Pramod Narayan secured 50308 votes. There were a total of 175174 registered voters on the electoral rolls for the 2026 Assembly election in Ranni Assembly constituency, of whom 85261 were male, 89912 female and 1 belonged to the third gender.Exit polls released for the high-stakes Kerala battle indicate a competitive contest, with the incumbent LDF government seeking a third consecutive term amid a strong challenge from the UDF.Ranni Assembly constituency is a general seat in Pathanamthitta district, Kerala, encompassing Ranni taluk areas including Ranni, Vadasserikkara, Cherukole, and nearby grama panchayats like Kottangal, featuring a strong Christian and plantation-based population influencing its politics. The current MLA is Adv. Pramod Narayan from Kerala Congress (M), elected in 2021 after securing 52,669 votes (41.22 per cent), defeating INC’s Rinku Cherian with 51,384 votes (40.21 per cent), yielding a narrow margin of 1,285 votes amid 65.97 per cent turnout.Key issues include devastating floods along the Pamba and Kakki Rivers disrupting rubber plantations, cardamom farms, and paddy fields vital to local livelihoods, erratic power supply and frequent outages during monsoons, poor rural road connectivity hampering transport of goods to markets, youth unemployment despite Gulf remittances, inadequate healthcare facilities beyond basic PHCs leading to travel burdens, illegal sand mining and quarrying polluting rivers and forests, waste management gaps causing sanitation woes, delays in irrigation projects for hill agriculture, rising land prices squeezing smallholders, traffic congestion on narrow highways from Sabarimala pilgrimage tourism, and environmental threats from deforestation straining this biodiversity-rich economy, as this UDF seat (flipped from LDF in 2021) balances development, faith dynamics, and Kerala’s civic challenges.