MALAPPURAM: Until a few days back, the IUML towered over the UDF like a Colossus. Riding on the League’s strength, the front swept back to power with a resounding victory in the assembly elections. However, within a week of the results, the party found itself pushed to the margins in the UDF, as the Congress secured the numbers enough to form the government, sans the League, with the support of the smaller allies.
The post-election power equations have exposed widening fault lines within the UDF, leaving the IUML politically isolated at the very moment it was expected to wield decisive influence.
The backlash was triggered by the League’s aggressive intervention in the chief ministerial race. By openly backing V D Satheesan for the top post, the IUML sought to shape the Congress leadership narrative from outside the party. Campaigns, public meetings and protest marches across the Malabar region projected Satheesan as the “natural choice” for chief minister soon after K C Venugopal’s name surfaced in internal discussions.
However, instead of strengthening its bargaining power, the League’s intervention provoked resentment among Congress factions backing Venugopal and Ramesh Chennithala.
From senior Congress leaders to campus units of the party’s student arm, KSU, criticism mounted against what many described as the League’s interference in the Congress’s internal affairs. The strain within the front spilled into the open after KSU activists sharply criticised the MSF for staging protest marches against KPCC president Sunny Joseph in Delhi while simultaneously organising a celebratory reception for Satheesan.
Don’t force bypoll, Congress warned
In a pointed statement, the KSU unit of Farook College targeted IUML state president Sayyid Sadik Ali Shihab Thangal and the Panakkad family, saying, “The Congress’s practice is not one where a family or leader simply reads a piece of paper, claps their hands, and chants takbir.”
The League, however, has shown no signs of retreating. Muslim Youth League Malappuram secretary Yoosuf Vallanchira hit back at the Venugopal camp, warning that LDF’s defeat had proven there were “no permanent safe seats” for any political party and advising the Congress leadership against forcing a by-election.
Adding to the League’s embarrassment was the response of several Congress leaders whose electoral victories owed heavily to the party’s support. Leaders, including Sandeep Warrier and T Siddique, distanced themselves from the League during the leadership tussle, exposing the limits of the IUML’s influence within the alliance.
The unease deepened further after newly elected UDF MLA G Sudhakaran visited Vellappally Natesan — a move sections within the League viewed as political ingratitude. MSF state general secretary C K Najaf sharply criticised the visit, accusing Sudhakaran of legitimising divisive politics.
“Glorifying a figure like Vellappally, who has poisoned society with divisive positions, is a grave mistake. Such actions by a public representative do not reflect Kerala’s progressive political consciousness, nor do they represent the UDF’s stand. If he wished to take such a position, he should first have resigned from the office entrusted to him by the people,” Najaf wrote on social media.