'CPI-M Is Why BJP Won Trivandrum Corporation'

'It was very clear in the Parliament election that there was an erosion of Hindu votes in southern Kerala from the CPI-M to the BJP.'

The local body elections in Kerala are fought as seriously as the assembly or Lok Sabha elections. Perhaps even more.

For the Congress-lead United Democratic Front, the 2025 local body elections were a litmus test, a semi-final match before the 2026 assembly election. And the UDF performed spectacularly, beyond everybody's expectations sweeping all the bodies: Grama Panchayats, Block Panchayats, District Panchayats, Municipalities, Corporations.

The tally is thus:

If you look at the vote share it is 40.7% for the UDF, 35.7% for the Left Democratic Front and 16% for the National Democratic Alliance.

Naturally, V D Satheesan, Leader of the Opposition in the Kerala assembly, is elated.

In an earlier conversation, in August 2025, Mr. Satheesan had told Rediff's Shobha Warrier that the results of the local body election would be an indicator of the assembly election result in 2026.

"We have started our preparation for the assembly election with more earnest today itself, a day after the local body election results are out. This is only a semi-final match. We have to win the final match also, the 2026 assembly elections. Our expectation is to win more than 100 seats," Mr. Satheesan tells Shobha in an interview recorded after the local body election results.

Were the local body election results on expected lines for the UDF?

Yes, they were on expected lines. In fact, beyond our calculations.

What do you think helped the UDF sweep the election?

One is the anti-incumbency against the existing LDF government.

In fact, we had submitted a chargesheet against the government, and that became the agenda of the election.

In our chargesheet, we had listed all the government's failings including the gold pilferage in Sabarimala.

In the history of Kerala, the fiscal situation was never so vulnerable.

The health of Kerala is in ventilator.

The higher education is so bad that students are going out of the state for higher education.

Agriculture is in distress.

Attack on wildlife is going on.

Coastal areas are in trouble.

This is the most inefficient government Kerala has ever seen.

It is not that we only criticised the government by pointing out its failures. Along with the criticism, we created a manifesto with an alternative idea for every failure.

We have been preparing for Mission 25 for the last one year.

We decided to call ourselves not just UDF but Team UDF. We want the UDF to act as a single party, and not just a group of parties.

The UDF is not only a confederation of various parties but one with broader components.

We have given a new meaning and face to coalition politics.

How did you sweep the election despite talk that there is lack of unity among Congress leaders?

It was a political narrative by the CP-M and some in the media that there was no unity among Congress leaders, and that all the Congress leaders were after the chief ministership.

I am telling you, all of us sit together and all decisions are taken by a collective leadership.

My job was to coordinate every meeting.

You mean there is no truth in the news that every top Congress leader in Kerala wants to be next chief minister?

There is no truth in the news. Nobody is in the race. Everybody understands that we have to come back (to power)

When we come back, there is a procedure introduced by the AICC (All India Congress Committee) to choose the CLP (Congress Legislature Party) leader.

Now, everybody knows that if we are fighting against each other, we will not come back. We sit together and take all decisions.

How do you react to the BJP capturing the Thiruvananthapuram corporation? Did it come as a shock?

We had warned the chief minister and the CPI-M many times that this was going to happen.

I had many press conferences against the stand taken by the CPI-M and (Kerala Chief Minister) Pinarayi Vijayan.

Till the Parliament elections, they were indulging in minority appeasement when Kerala has always had a secular positioning in politics. Majority of the Malayalis are secular in nature.

When the CPI-M suffered a setback in the Lok Sabha election, they took up another approach which was majority appeasement and started a propaganda against the Muslim and Christian communities. This was to win the Hindus back to their fold.

In 1987, (the late CPI-M leader and later chief minister E K) Nayanar had used the EMS (the late CPI doyen E M S Namboodiripad) strategy of consolidating the majority community to win the election.

When they tried the same thing in 2025, I warned them that this was not 1987 when there was no serious presence of the BJP in Kerala.

I said if they tried majority appeasement and fought the minorities in 2025 and 2026, the beneficiary would be the BJP as it was the BJP style of functioning.

For example, if the Congress took a soft Hindutva stand, why should the Hindus be with the Congress when an extreme Hindu stand is taken by the BJP? Similarly, if the CPI-M is taking a soft Hindutva line, why should the Hindus vote for the CPI-M?

So, you feel the CPI-M lost the Hindu votes to the BJP?

Exactly. The end result was the CPI-M lost the Hindu vote base, which they had from the very beginning, to the BJP.

It was very clear in the Parliament election that there was an erosion of Hindu votes in southern Kerala from the CPI-M to the BJP.

I agree that we (the Congress) also lost some Hindu votes in the last decade, but it is not so today.

That's why I say that the CPI-M is the reason behind the BJP winning the Trivandrum corporation.

Do you think this is the first step for the BJP to gain foothold in the rest of Kerala?

Not at all. If you look at the local body election results, you will see that the BJP lost votes in many places in Kerala like Palakkad, Pandalam, Thrissur.

The BJP won only 5% of the local body seats.

In fact, in the Thiruvananthapuram corporation, we have doubled our seats. It shows the BJP's gain was the CPI-M's loss.

We captured Kollam and Kochi from the CPI-M while retaining Kannur.

Compared to the other 5 corporations, how is Thiruvananthapuram different?

It is a fact that the BJP has some base in the capital.

In the last three Parliament elections, which we won (Shashi Tharoor), the second position was taken by the BJP and not the Left.

This happened only in Thiruvananthapuram, and not in any other place in Kerala.

Yes, the BJP got Thrissur in 2024.

Otherwise, out of the 18 Lok Sabha seats we won, the LDF came second in 17 seats.

The local body election results show that the UDF has managed to recapture the Christian votes after losing it in the Lok Sabha elections...

When we lost the 2016 and the 2021 assembly elections, there was an erosion of Christian votes from our side.

Now in 2025, they have come back to us.

How did that happen?

Now, the UDF is not just a confederation of various parties, the UDF has become a broader political platform.

Many places in the Malabar region, a consolidation of Christian, Muslim and Hindu votes towards the UDF, has taken place.

Similarly, in central Kerala, in Pathanamthitta, Idukki, Ernakulam and Kottayam, where Christians dominate, we have swept.

If we have got the votes of all the three communities, it is because we have positioned ourselves as a secular front.

We are against any kind of appeasement, both majority appeasement and minority appeasement.

If any leader indulges in a hate campaign against another community, we make statements against such leaders.

I myself have made statements against the Hindu leaders, Muslim leaders and Christian leaders who spoke against other communities.

That is the positioning of the UDF, as a secular front where everybody is equal.

The final match is going to be the 2026 assemble election. Now that the UDF has swept the semi-final match, how will you ensure that your party workers don't become complacent?

I agree with you totally. We cannot be complacent.

After we won 18 out of 20 seats in the Lok Sabha, I told our party workers we had to forget the victory as the local body election was coming.

My message to them was to work hard to win that too.

We have started our preparation for the assembly election with more earnest today itself, a day after the local body election results are out.

Like you said, this is only a semi-final match. We have to win the final match also, the 2026 assembly elections.

Our expectation is to win more than 100 seats.

The BJP claims there is an understanding between the LDF and the UDF to keep the BJP away from the state. Is there any truth in the allegation?

Absolutely not. There is no truth in the allegation.

On the other hand, I would say there was an unholy nexus between the BJP and the LDF in many places.

Where does Shashi Tharoor stand in the Congress party in Kerala? He didn't campaign much for the UDF, and he has been making statements in support of the BJP and Modi...

I am not a competent person to make any comment on a CWC (Congress Working Committee) member. It is the high command that has to make a decision.

But my request to him is he should be with us. Not even a single leader in Kerala is against him, and we used to invite him to all the political campaigns in Kerala.

Now also, we are inviting him, and he should be part of our campaign team.

It is said that even now party workers at the grassroot level have not yet connected with him. Is there any truth in that?

Yes, he is different from the other leaders here. All of us started our careers at the student level, and from there, we have come up.

So, we have been working in the party for 30,40,50 years. So, we know each and every party worker.

When we travel across Kerala, we know many workers by their name.

But he came here from the UN and then became an MP. So, his style of functioning is different.

After the local body election results were out, the major headline in newspapers across India was the BJP capturing one corporation, and not the UDF sweeping the elections.

(laughs) That is the national media for you! Except for two or three, majority of the national media is working for the BJP.

The fact is there are six corporations in Kerala, and we won four with a clear majority, the BJP won only one.

Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff