Kerala capital gets first BJP mayor, Congress trounces Left in local polls

Amidst continuous defeats, Congress received some good news from Kerala, where in the local body elections, the Congress-led UDF alliance trounced the Left-led LDF alliance, giving it a ray of hope for the Assembly elections to be held four months later.

- AJIT MAINDOLA

This victory will provide a major boost to Congress work ers. The trend in Kerala has been that whoever wins these local elections has an easier path to the Assembly elections. Congress has lost two consecutive Assembly elections in Kerala, in 2016 and 2021. Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party sprung a major surprise by winning the municipal corporation election in Thiruvananthapuram, the stronghold of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor. This is the first time that the lotus has bloomed in Kerala by capturing a major seat—that of the state capital. The BJP’s performance was also decent in Thrissur, the area of Union Minister Suresh Gopi. In a ward of Thrissur, a Muslim candidate from BJP, Mumtaz, surprised everyone by defeating the Congress candidate Sindhu. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on the victory in Thiruvananthapuram, posted “Thank you Thiruvananthapuram” on his X account and said that this mandate received by the BJP and NDA was a historic moment in Kerala politics. “The mandate the BJP-NDA got in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation is a watershed moment in Kera