MALAPPURAM: Once regarded as a party largely confined to the Malabar, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) has steadily expanded its reach to emerge as one with a statewide presence. Significantly, the party has, for the first time, won representation in all 14 districts.
In the local body elections, the League secured 3,203 seats, including 2,843 under its ‘ladder’ symbol. With a tally of 2,248 grama panchayat members, 300 block panchayat members, 51 district panchayat members, 36 corporation councillors and 568 municipal councillors, it now ranks third among parties in terms of total seats, behind Congress and CPM.
In the 2010 local body elections, IUML secured 1,904 seats, with its strength concentrated mainly in north Kerala. By 2020, the party recorded moderate growth, raising its tally to 2,111. In 2025, it marked a major breakthrough, with a sharp surge to 3,203 seats.
IUML state general secretary P M A Salam said the party’s growth over the years was driven purely by organisational strength. “In the past five years, the League has increased its tally by nearly 1,000 seats. We have also strengthened our organisation in the southern districts and won around 80% of the seats we contested.
No other party has such a record. In north Malabar, our supremacy is unquestioned. We won the Malappuram district panchayat without opposition, and in other northern districts of the state, we secured almost all the seats allotted to us,” he said.
The party won all three district panchayat seats it contested in Ernakulam and Thiruvananthapuram. Even Pathanamthitta, where it had no representation, returned seven members.
After a gap, it won two seats each in the Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram corporations, three seats in Kochi corporation, and doubled its strength in Kozhikode corporation from seven to 14.
Buoyed by its performance, the League is now staking a claim for deputy mayor posts in Kollam and Kochi, in addition to its existing positions in the Kozhikode and Kannur corporations.