(As Kerala gears up for the Assembly polls, every week, Shaju Philip decodes the electoral trends, political signals, and campaign moves shaping the contest.)
As Kerala heads to the Assembly elections slated for next month, the ruling CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) is leveraging its achievements over the past decade in power to fend off the challenge from the Opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), which is fresh off its comeback in the local body elections held last December.
Unlike previous Assembly elections that were dominated by allegations and counter-allegations over various corruption scandals, the LDF government 2.0 is seen to have avoided any such major rows, around which the Congress would have built its poll plank.
Instead, the LDF has set the tone of the 2026 Assembly elections with its development record under Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. The Left has been attempting to showcase how Kerala is “shining” during its 10-year regime, drawing its comparison with the performance of the previous Congress-led government from 2011 to 2016.
This has put the Congress in a piquant situation. Because, at a time when the UDF should be focusing on highlighting the shortcomings of the ruling coalition, it has been instead forced to defend its previous government’s record nearly a decade after it lost power. Besides, instead of critiquing the LDF’s claims on development, the Congress has been questioning the LDF’s right to publicise its achievements.
On Thursday, most of Kerala’s regional dailies carried two-page advertisements from the state’s Department of Information and Public Relations, with one page displaying the Malayalam newspaper clippings from the years of the Congress regime and the other with news from recent years under the LDF.
Described as news that “dominated” Malayalam dailies a decade ago, the clippings picked from the Congress era highlighted issues ranging from power cuts, school closures, pension arrears and stalled projects like the national highway development and GAIL pipeline.
The other advertisement page carried news reports about how Kerala “changed over the last 10 years” on these fronts, with a note saying, “It presents a real picture of how successive Vijayan governments have changed Kerala. The reports are factual, while the design is symbolic.”
This unprecedented method of showcasing the LDF dispensation’s accomplishments in direct contrast with the UDF government’s track record has since gone viral, leaving the Congress red-faced. Behind the advertisements is the LDF’s larger claim about how much it has changed Kerala over the past decade while questioning if the state should return to the “dark days” of the Congress’s rule.
Though the Congress has flayed the advertisement as an “insult” to late party stalwart Oomen Chandy, the last Congress CM in Kerala, it faces a double-edged sword if it were to directly confront the Left over their respective development records. Several of the Left government’s infrastructure successes, for instance, have occurred in the Assembly constituencies held by the MLAs of the Congress and its allies. Fearing allegations of being “anti-development”, the Congress has also looked to bury its past objections to many of the LDF’s flagship projects, including the major tunnel connecting Kozhikode and Wayanad districts cutting across the Western Ghats.
Recently, the LDF government’s ‘Nava Kerala Citizens Response Programme’, a survey intended to gather public opinion on welfare projects, had triggered a row as it was seen as a pre-election exercise to garner support for the ruling front. The government also recently sent personalised messages to around 5 lakh of its employees, and another 1 crore beneficiaries of its welfare schemes, touting its achievements and how it has addressed various specific demands, including for Dearness Allowance (DA) hikes and salary revisions. The Congress, however, has been highly critical of both these initiatives, which have since turned into legal battles.
The LDF’s trump card on the welfare front is its direct social security assistance to 30% of the state’s electorate (around 1 crore of the 2.69 crore voters) every month through pensions and grants for women and the youth. In the 2021 Assembly elections, held during the Covid-19 pandemic, the LDF had hiked the welfare pensions for 60 lakh beneficiaries to Rs 1,600 from the Rs 600 monthly amount set by the Congress government. The move was widely credited as among the factors that helped the Left return to power. This year, the LDF has stuck to its playbook, announcing a further hike in pension to Rs 2,000 a month.