The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) stormed back to power in Kerala, ending a decade in Opposition with a commanding 102-seat victory in the 140-member Assembly.
Riding a powerful anti-incumbency wave, the alliance dismantled several CPI(M) bastions, reducing the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF), which was seeking an unprecedented third-consecutive term under Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, to just 35 seats. The LDF defeat means no state in the country now has a Left government — a first in nearly five decades.
The BJP, meanwhile, managed to secure three seats to put up its best showing in an Assembly election in Kerala.
While CM Vijayan retained his Dharmadam seat, 13 of his Cabinet colleagues were defeated. They included prominent faces of the LDF government, such as P Rajeeve, M B Rajesh, V N Vasavan, V Sivankutty and Veena George, who managed key portfolios. Other senior, high-profile CPI(M) leaders, K K Shailaja and T P Ramakrishnan, were also among those who lost.
In the UDF, winners from the Congress include Leader of Opposition V D Satheesan, former Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala and Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Sunny Joseph. Other top UDF leaders elected to the Assembly include P K Kunhalikutty of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), C P John of the Communist Marxist Party Kerala State Committee (CMPKSC), Anoop Jacob of Kerala Congress (Jacob) and Shibu Baby John of the Revolutionary Socialist Party. Three CPI(M) rebels, G Sudhakaran, T K Govindan and V Kunhikrishnan, also won as Independents with UDF backing.
The scale of the UDF’s victory points to a deep and widespread anti-incumbency sentiment against the decade-long LDF rule. Across Kerala, voters appeared to decisively turn against the CPI(M), with the party suffering unexpected defeats in constituencies that even its rivals had not anticipated winning.
The LDF’s campaign, built around highlighting development and highlighting infrastructure projects, appears to have failed to resonate with voters. On the ground, concerns over rising prices, unemployment and distress in the farm sector weighed more heavily on the electorate, creating a silent but decisive undercurrent against the ruling front. These bread-and-butter issues ultimately overshadowed the government’s development pitch. Even the Pinarayi Vijayan factor, which had helped the CPI(M)-led alliance retain power in 2021 after calamities and the pandemic, seemed to have worked against the fortunes of the LDF this time around.
In contrast, the UDF capitalised on a strong secular plank — a position consistently articulated by Opposition leader V D Satheesan, who has accused the Left of diluting its ideological commitment to secularism in efforts to make electoral gains. The results indicate that this messaging resonated widely with voters, shaping the decisive outcome in favour of the UDF.
The CPI(M) lost several seats in Kannur, Kozhikode, Palakkad, Alappuzha, Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram districts — seats that the LDF had retained in recent elections.
The Congress has either won or is leading in 64 seats out of a total of 140 in the state. It was in 2001 that the party last put up similar numbers, winning 63 seats. Its ally in the UDF, the IUML, contested 27 seats and is poised to win 22.
In the LDF, the CPI(M), which had won 61 seats in 2021, is leading or winning in only 25 seats. Its ally, the CPI, has been reduced to just eight seats, less than half of the 17 that it won in 2021. Another LDF constituency, the Kerala Congress (M), which contested 12 seats, was completely wiped out.
The result was a clear and overwhelming mandate against the ruling LDF, cutting across regions and communities in the state. Many of the UDF’s winners have a five-digit margin of victory, something rarely seen in Assembly elections in Kerala.
The BJP, which had focused on trying to win around a dozen seats, managed to win three. The party’s state president, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, won the Nemom seat, which the party had won in 2016 but lost in 2021. Former Union minister and senior leader V Muraleedharan won the Kazhakoottam seat. Both seats, which were held by the CPI(M), are part of the Thiruvananthapuram urban area, where the BJP has a strong presence and is in power in the municipal corporation.
The third BJP seat was Chathannoor in Kollam district, where B B Gopakumar, who had been improving his vote share over the last two elections, managed a victory this time.
The BJP’s experiment of joining hands with Twenty20, a political party backed by the garments company KITEX, in 19 seats, failed to translate into seats.
Riding a powerful anti-incumbency wave, the alliance dismantled several CPI(M) bastions, reducing the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF), which was seeking an unprecedented third-consecutive term under Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, to just 35 seats. (File) 
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