4 takeaways from Congress big win in Kerala bypoll

The constituency, which falls within the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat represented by the Congress’s Priyanka Gandhi, registered a 75.87% voter turnout. Shoukath got 44.17% of the vote share, while Swaraj got 37.88%. The wide gap between the winner and the nearest rival is mainly attributed to Anvar bagging 11.23% of polled votes. In the 2021 elections, LDF had 46.9% of polled votes and UDF 45.34%.

Shoukath is the son of Congress veteran Aryadan Muhammed, who had represented the seat from 1987 to 2016.

Reacting to the bypoll outcome, Congress-led UDF’s Leader of the Opposition V D Satheesan said people of Nilambur had “given fuel for the return of UDF into power” in the Assembly elections of 2026. The result shows the extent of “people’s contempt” towards the LDF government, he said.

CPI(M) state secretary M V Govindan said the UDF has won with the backing of communal forces. “Nilambur is not among our list of winnable seats, but the party will examine the outcome and make corrections if necessary,” he said.

What does the win mean for Congress?

The Congress had approached the by-election as a mandate against the nine-year regime of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. This is the first by-election held since 2021 in which the Congress has managed to wrest back a seat from the ruling LDF; in previous by-elections, the Congress could only retain its sitting seats.

The party’s victory would boost its confidence to fight local body elections later this year and the Assembly elections in 2026. To secure a win, the Congress had to fight not only its nearest rival, the CPI(M), but also Anvar.

Within the Congress, the verdict will cement the clout of Opposition leader V D Satheesan, who led the campaign machinery. The win is also a consolation for the new state leadership under Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Sunny Joseph, who replaced K Sudhakaran last month.

Satheesan had opposed Anvar’s demand that he be allowed to associate with the UDF in Nilambur, and a defeat would have weakened Satheesan’s supremacy in the UDF and the Congress.

Setback for CPI(M), Vijayan

The defeat of the party’s candidate comes close on the heels of the Vijayan government completing nine years in power. Asserting that the LDF government does not face any anti-incumbency, the CPI(M) has already begun a campaign for a third consecutive term next year when the state goes to the polls.

In Nilambur, the CPI(M) had fielded its own candidate, in a departure from the past practice of backing Independents. However, the party failed to neutralise anti-incumbency by launching the young and social media-savvy leader Swaraj, who also hails from Nilambur. At the same time, the verdict from hinterland Nilambur, where agricultural issues like wildlife attacks dominated the woes of the electorate, cannot be taken as a harbinger of what awaits in the Assembly elections next year.

Anvar’s fate

By gaining 19,000 votes, Anvar has demonstrated his influence in Nilambur, the constituency which he had represented since 2016 as a CPI(M)-backed Independent. In a way, he split the anti-LDF votes, a section of which would have otherwise gone to the Congress kitty.

Anvar has declared that he is in the election fray to defeat “Pinarayism” (style of functioning). The future of Anvar, who is the state coordinator of the Trinamool Congress, depends on the approach of the Congress, which has so far kept the doors shut on his intention to associate with the UDF.

That Anvar has no clout outside Nilambur will be a factor that the Congress will weigh before taking a decision. Besides, despite Anvar posing a challenge, the Congress managed a win with a sizeable margin.

BJP’s lukewarm approach

BJP candidate Mohan George finished fourth behind the Congress, the CPI(M) and Anvar. The party got only 4.91% of the vote share, which is almost at the same level of 4.96% in the 2021 elections. The BJP, under its new state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar, was reluctant to contest the by-election, claiming that it would not bring any change in the state politics when Assembly elections are less than a year away. In the constituency where 45 per cent of the electorate is Hindu (as per the 2011 census), the party picked a local Christian leader from the regional Christian party, the Kerala Congress. Christians formed a little under 8% of the electorate in the seat.