A ‘Grand Double’, a ‘Big Breather’, and a ‘Heavy Blow’ — these phrases encapsulate the outcomes of the three by-elections held in Kerala, reflecting the fortunes of the United Democratic Front, the Left Democratic Front, and the National Democratic Alliance, respectively. While the UDF and LDF battled fiercely to split the spoils 2:1, the INDIA bloc, encompassing both, can boast of a clean sweep, leaving the NDA empty-handed in the by-elections to the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat and the two assembly constituencies.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s impressive electoral debut in Wayanad was expected. But her 4.1 lakh-vote winning margin exceeded expectations, surpassing Rahul Gandhi’s 3.64 lakh-vote margin in April. Although shy of her brother’s 2019 record (4.31 lakh votes), Priyanka’s vote share increased to 64.99% from Rahul’s 64.94% even though voter turnout dipped by 8.72%, likely due to the devastating landslide in July that claimed 420 lives.
Priyanka’s gain came at the expense of her opponents — the Communist Party of India (Sathyan Mokeri) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (Navya Haridas) — who lost 4% and 1.5% of their vote shares, respectively. The by-election was triggered when Rahul retained Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, necessitating his resignation from Wayanad. Notably, the lower turnout seemed to affect only Priyanka’s rivals.
The UDF celebrated, once again, with a resounding victory in the Palakkad assembly seat. In a rancorous triangular contest there, Rahul Mamkoottathil, the state Youth Congress president, secured a record majority of 18,840 votes, nearly five times that of his predecessor in 2021. The high-voltage campaign saw bitter personal attacks against candidates, last-minute defections and mutual accusations of communal and corrupt deals that vitiated the electoral landscape. This by-election was held because the Congress’s three-time winner, Shafi Parambil, stepped down to contest and win the Lok Sabha polls in April.
The BJP had hoped to win in Palakkad for multiple reasons. It is one of its strongholds and among the seven assembly seats where the BJP came second in the last two elections. The Palakkad Municipal Corporation is the only urban local body in which the BJP has been in power for nearly a decade. In the 2021 assembly elections, the BJP’s star candidate, the technocrat, E. Sreedharan aka Metro Man, lost only by 3,859 votes. The BJP’s candidate, C. Krishna Kumar, the party’s state secretary and a popular municipal councillor for two decades, had the advantage of being a ‘son of the soil’ as opposed to Mamkoottathil, who belonged to Pathanamthitta, a distant district. The BJP also expected to reap some of the afterglow of the stunning victory of the actor-politician, Suresh Gopi, seven months ago in neighbouring Thrissur, notching up the BJP’s first-ever Lok Sabha seat from Kerala.
However, all of the BJP’s hopes came crashing when it trailed in its strongholds in the Palakkad Municipality region, surprising even its critics. Its defeat is now being ascribed primarily to the anti-incumbency vote against the inept decade-long BJP rule in the Palakkad Municipal Corporation. The BJP’s woes increased a week before the election when Sandeep Warrier, the BJP state spokesperson, defected to the Congress following differences with the leadership. Unlike with Gopi in Thrissur, the BJP failed to attract the traditionally pro-Congress Christian votes. Moreover, the BJP’s grand show in 2021 was also owing to the Metro Man’s personal appeal.
The UDF’s impressive victory in Wayanad and Palakkad was also due to the solid support from the Muslim community, which has a substantial presence in both seats. However, the Congress laboured during the campaign to explain the open support it received from the state Jamaat-e-Islami and Social Democratic Party of India, attached to the proscribed Popular Front of India. The UDF refused to follow the LDF, which publicly declared that it would not welcome votes from these groups. The support from these Muslim outfits and also the BJP dissident helped the LDF portray the UDF’s win as a “victory of communal politics”. On the other hand, the LDF was accused of playing the communal card during the campaign when it inserted advertisements only in two newspapers run by Muslim outfits. The advertisements pointed to the Congress’s alleged compromises with Hindutva by citing its induction of the BJP’s dissident leader who had made anti-Muslim statements earlier.
The LDF ended third in Palakkad again, like it did in the last two elections. However, its candidate, P. Sarin, a former Congress leader who defected just before the polls following differences with leadership and was fielded as a Communist Party of India (Marxist)-backed independent, did manage to increase the LDF’s vote share marginally.
The biggest relief to the ruling LDF, the CPI(M) in particular, though, came from the Chelakkara-reserved assembly seat in the Thrissur district. Although it is a red bastion, the good victory margin (12,201 votes) of the CPI(M) candidate, U.R. Pradeep, helped the LDF dismiss the continuation of the powerful anti-incumbency wave of April’s Lok Sabha election when it lost in 19 of the 20 seats. Notably, the LDF’s only win in the Lok Sabha polls came in Alathur, which included the Chelakkara assembly segment. The present by-poll was necessitated when Chelakkara’s legislator and the former state minister, K. Radhakrishnan, resigned to contest and win in the Lok Sabha election. In April, Radhakrishnan defeated the Congress’s Ramya Haridas, the then-sitting Lok Sabha member from Alathur. The Congress fielded Haridas again in the Chelakkara bypoll, only to be beaten, yet again, by CPI(M). However, Pradeep’s margin fell by a third of the highly popular Radhakrishnan’s huge majority in 2021.
Yet, the LDF’s win in Chelakkara comes after continuous losses in all the polls held after it won an unprecedented consecutive second time in the state assembly in 2021. The LDF was trounced in two assembly by-elections as well as April’s Lok Sabha polls. Over eight years in power now, the LDF government and the chief minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, have been embroiled in several controversies and have been the hot targets of nearly the entire mainstream media. The government’s financial crises, aggravated by repeated natural disasters, the pandemic, and the apathy of the Central government, have severely choked its welfare and development programmes, causing much public ire. The government’s omissions and commissions, a repressive police force, and the corrupt and arrogant ways of the leaders fuelled by prolonged stints in power, too, have considerably dented the LDF’s image.
Chelakkara has now offered a reprieve for the ruling front to reiterate its argument that its rout in the Lok Sabha elections was no sign of anti-incumbency. As Kerala approaches local self-government elections next year, followed by assembly polls in 2026, the by-election results underscore shifting political dynamics. For the UDF, Wayanad and Palakkad reaffirm its dominance, bolstered by cross-community support. For the LDF, Chelakkara symbolises resilience amidst challenges, while the NDA faces an existential crisis, struggling to sustain momentum even in its erstwhile bastions.
M.G. Radhakrishnan, a journalist based in Thiruvananthapuram, has worked with various print and electronic media organisations