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ISSUES '98
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State:	Kerala
Constituency:	Chirayinkil
Total Votes Polled:	696024
Winner: CPM	A Sampath	330079
Runner Up: INC	Thalekkunnil Basheer	281996
Margin: 48083 (7.07%)

Vayalar Ravi was the first Congressman to be elected from here, in 1971, and he repeated his feat in 1977, in the face of the Janata phenomenon. The 1980 election saw him on the wrong side of the political divide, when he aligned with the Congress-U and lost to the Congress-I candidate. In 1984 and 1989 Congressman T Basheer was voted in, before the CPI-M's Susheela Gopalan stopped him in his tracks in 1991. Basheer couldn't come back in 1996 either, with the CPI-M still holding sway.