Kochi,  Congress candidate Uma Thomas continued to maintain a lead with over 12,000 votes, while the CPI-M conceded defeat at the end of the sixth round as counting of votes for the May 31 Thrikkakara bypoll got underway on Friday.

While interacting with the media at the Ernakulam district committee office of the CPI-M, district secretary C.V.Mohan termed the development "unexpected".

"We never expected this, but we humbly accept the people's verdict. With the kind of efforts we put in this should not have happened. We have to analyse where we went wrong," he added.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had reportedly led the campaign at Thrikkakara and accompanying him were all his cabinet ministers and 75 of their legislators had campaigned at Thrikkakara.

Mohan, however, gave a clean chit to the chief minister saying that he never led the campaign.

"The Chief Minister never leads an Assembly by-election and it was the district party which led the polls. And this verdict cannot be an assessment of the Vijayan government, as this is only one constituency and not a state level election," said Mohan.

As soon as Mohan said this, TV channels started airing the statement of CPI-M state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan which was made on the penultimate where he said that they have no qualms to say that this would be an assessment of the Vijayan government.

Meanwhile, the CPI-M top brass, including Vijayan and Balakrishnan, and others were closeted at the state party headquarters in the state capital and all eyes are on what they have to say.

Now the only thing that remains to be seen is what would be the final lead of Uma and one thing is certain that she will surpass the lead that her late husband P.T.Thomas won at the April 2021 Assembly polls.

Thomas won over with 14,000 votes.

There are 11 rounds of counting for voting that took place in 239 polling booths.

The election was necessitate after the sudden demise of two-time Thrikkakara's Congress legislator P.T.Thomas in December last year.

While many expected the turnout to be the highest ever since the constituency came into being 2011, when polling ended it turned out to be the least ever with only 68.77 per cent electorate exercising their franchise.