M.K. Varghese, the mayor of Thrissur in Kerala, has turned into a bitter pill for the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) as he has been going around praising Suresh Gopi, the first-ever BJP Lok Sabha member from the state.

Varghese, who was appointed mayor of the Thrissur Corporation by the LDF over three years ago after he left the Congress, has been very liberal in his praise of Gopi since the lead-up to the Lok Sabha elections. This has opened up fissures in the LDF, which is caught in a catch-22 situation since any attempt to remove Varghese would end its control on the corporation where it enjoys just a one-seat margin over the Congress-led United Democratic Front.

But Varghese justified his praise for Gopi’s development outlook for Thrissur and Kerala. “Shouldn’t I be with him if he wants to bring development projects to Thrissur? Shouldn’t I, as the mayor, be with him if the people of Thrissur think he is a man of high ideals? He has big plans to bring development projects in Kerala,” he told reporters recently.

Varghese didn’t shy away from waxing eloquent about Gopi’s capabilities. “He is capable of working for the people by transcending political barriers. He may have won as a BJP candidate, but I realised that he has major plans in mind,” Varghese added.

The mayor didn’t have a convincing reply when asked about rumours that he would be contesting on a BJP ticket in the 2026 Assembly polls. “I have no such ideas at the moment,” he quipped.

The CPM’s junior partner in the LDF, the CPI, has, however, demanded the removal of Varghese.

“A mayor backed by the LDF must not promote the BJP’s politics just because he is a fan of Suresh Gopi,” Thrissur district secretary of the CPI, K.K. Valsaraj, said recently.

The LDF leaders are worried because the BJP will certainly use Varghese’s lavish praise on Gopi as a trump card in the Assembly bypoll for neighbouring Palakkad, vacated by the Congress’s Shafi Parambil who has been elected to the Lok Sabha.