PATHANAMTHITTA: Amid the tug-of-war between the LDF and the UDF for control of Tiruvalla municipality, the BJP has been steadily and silently making gains in the region, turning the Pathanamthitta political landscape into one to watch.
In the 2020 civic polls, the municipality ended with a fractured mandate – with UDF winning 16, LDF 15, BJP 6, SDPI 1, and one seat going to an independent. The UDF managed to retain power, with Congress’ Bindu Jayakumar elected chairperson, but the coalition started to crumble, soon after.
According to the seat-sharing arrangement, the Kerala Congress was to get to name a chairperson after the first term. However, Bindu refused to honour the pact, and KC (Joseph) member Shanthamma Varghese crossed over to the left camp, dramatically shifting the arithmetic and handing the municipality to the LDF.
The LDF rule, however, lasted only eight months. Marking its return to power, the UDF elected Congress councillor Anu George as chairperson. But fresh tensions surfaced when Anu refused to hand over the chair at the end of the agreed term, triggering discontent within the front.
The subsequent vice-chairman’s election only deepened the crisis, with invalid votes cast by former chairpersons derailing a seemingly certain UDF victory. With the civic body yet again caught in factional turbulence, the question of stability remains unresolved.
While the UDF and LDF remained locked in a cycle of allegations and counter-allegations, the BJP expanded its footprint in the municipality.
In Tiruvalla’s Kaviyoor grama panchayat, BJP won six of the 14 seats, securing governance in the process. Moreover, apart from improving its seat count in the municipality by two, the party doubled its vote share.
These results are being read by political observers as a strategic breakthrough for the party in a region with a sizeable non-resident Keralite (NRK) population and traditionally strong presence of KC groups, whose vote base is predominantly the Nair community and Syrian Christians.
“The BJP has been working with patience and precision in the panchayats around Tiruvalla municipality. Recent issues, especially the Sabarimala gold theft case, will have a direct impact on elections and the CPM will pay the price. The Congress, which is already battling the Rahul Mamkootathil issue, has lost its moral standing. People are now more aware of development-related concerns and are choosing to support the party,” BJP district president V A Sooraj said.
The party’s steady gains in adjoining local bodies are being viewed as the most significant political takeaway in Pathanamthitta since the last local polls. The numbers may not yet place the saffron party in a position to take the municipality on its own. But the shift is hard to ignore.
If the present trend continues, analysts warn that the next election in Tiruvalla may no longer be a straight LDF-UDF contest.