Former Kerala minister K.T. Jaleel retained his sitting seat of Thavanur after a closely-contested battle with Congress's Firoz Kunnamparambil.
Jaleel, who had been mired in a slew of controversies during his tenure as the higher education minister, won the seat by 3,066 seats.
Jaleel has represented Thavannur ever since the constituency was formed in 2011. In 2016 elections, he won the seat with a majority of 17,064 seats. This time, however, a plethora of corruption allegations brought down his winning margin considerably.
Jaleel resigned from the Pinarayi Vijayan cabinet on April 13, days after the state Lokayukta's finding that he had abused his position as a public servant to favour a relative.
Jaleel has been in the media glare since last year after he was questioned by the Enforcement Directorate and the National Investigation Agency over the import of Quran by the UAE consulate in Thiruvananthapuram and his alleged telephone conversation with Swapna Suresh, a key accused in the gold smuggling case.
