Of the five assemblies going to polls in the next few weeks, the state where the Congress is perhaps pinning its tallest hope of forming a government is Kerala. The hope is fuelled by anti-incumbency against 10 years of Left Democratic Front rule and is based on Congress thumping Lok Sabha victory in 2024 and during the local body elections three months ago. Many Left citadels fell as the United Democratic Front swept corporations, municipalities and grama panchayats with a decisive edge of 5.4 percent in vote share over the LDF.
But this winning spark, instead of igniting a desire to propel the party in the upcoming polls, has singed it, with Congress leaders openly fighting over post-poll positions. The CPI(M), which leads the governing coalition, announced 81 of its 86 candidates on March 15, the very day the Election Commission of India unveiled the poll schedule. Whereas the Congress wasted five days squabbling over who should contest.
Former Pradesh Congress Committee president K Sudhakaran, former home minister Ramesh Chennithala, UDF convenor Adoor Prakash and others were actively politicking, queering the pitch for the Leader of Opposition, V D Satheesan, a frontrunner in the chief-ministerial race. K C Venugopal, national general secretary in charge of organisation, was not quick enough to organise his fellow Malayali Congressmen. It seems a faint smell of faraway success turned Congressmen delusional over trappings of power.
Even after Sudhakaran’s rebellion was quelled, it still took the Congress some time to finalise the candidates’ list, proving that the opposition was not battle-ready. Meanwhile, television screens were blaring the story of a rape-accused aspirant, when denied a ticket, threatening to take on Satheesan as a rebel candidate. He, like the others, soon fell in line, but only after a distasteful drama.
The greatest beneficiary of this high-voltage street theatre was the LDF. It was not merely a case of the UDF losing crucial days of electioneering, but the electorate getting distracted from issues of governance, corruption allegations and ideological wranglings.
If the UDF still wins, it would only be because of the anti-incumbency wave that has been sweeping the state for some time, as evidenced in the Lok Sabha and local body polls, not because of the Congress leadership’s efforts to dislodge Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who has launched a spirited campaign. The government is battling several debilitating allegations of corruption—the worst being the Sabarimala gold theft case—and high-profile issues of misgovernance, particularly in the health sector.
However, what makes this election unique is the unprecedented internal dissension in the CPI(M). Former three-term MLA Aisha Potty and former Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan’s aide A Suresh have joined the Congress. Heavyweight former minister G Sudhakaran, former MLA P K Sasi, and local leaders V Kunhikrishnan and T K Govindan are contesting as UDF-supported independent candidates. Two of these contests are happening in chief minister’s backyard, Kannur. The CPI(M) had earlier witnessed splits engineered by stalwarts M V Raghavan and K R Gouri Amma, but never retail defections on this scale.
That is not all. The BJP, too, has a fair share of LDF defectors in its camp. Former CPI(M) MLA S Rajendran and ex-CPI representative K Ajith are now BJP contestants, as is sitting CPI legislator C C Mukundan. These internal contradictions, allegations of corruption and accusations of misgovernance leave the LDF dented as it makes an attempt to seek a third consecutive term—completely unheard of in Kerala.
After winning the Thrissur Lok Sabha seat in 2024, and then the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation and Tripunithura Municipality in 2025, the BJP believes that it is on an upswing. Some of the voters who have got thoroughly disgusted by the antics of Congress leaders may prefer the BJP as a third option, particularly those who want a change of government. But even these anti-incumbency votes may not form the critical mass to win many seats for the BJP.
The BJP’s alliance with Twenty20, a central Kerala local political outfit, leaving 19 seats for this untested newbie has left many baffled, triggering opposition allegations of a clandestine deal between the BJP and the CPI(M) to keep the Congress out of power. In a state with nearly 50 percent minority population, the BJP had for long sought Christian votes to make a mark. It did win considerable Christian support while bagging the Thrissur Lok Sabha seat. This time around, Twenty20 is expected to offer Christians a platform within the NDA.
The BJP had led in 11 assembly segments in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, but was disappointed with its poor show in the Thrissur local body election. Rajeev Chandrashekhar, former Union minister and state unit head, is contesting one of the three segments that he had led in the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha contest. The party was ahead in two segments in neighbouring Attingal parliamentary constituency as well in the same district. But these and a couple of other seats may not add up to a giant leap unless voters decisively move from the CPI(M) to the BJP, because hitherto the former has been the primary party favoured by Hindu voters in the state.
If indeed such a shift happens, the BJP would only have the Congress to thank because the latter’s public display of avarice has left even some of its eager voters angry.
Rajesh Ramachandran | Former editor-in-chief, The Tribune and Outlook
(Views are personal)