Kerala Assembly Polls 2026: In Thiruvananthapuram constituency, confusion still prevails in candidate selection

All the three major political fronts appear to be drowned in indecision when it comes to officially declaring their candidates for the prestigious Thiruvananthapuram Assembly constituency.

All the three major political fronts appear to be drowned in indecision when it comes to officially declaring their candidates for the prestigious Thiruvananthapuram Assembly constituency. While the delay on the part of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) can be attributed to the circumstances extraneous to the party, the United Democratic Front (UDF) has been grappling with internal friction and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is still narrowing down its choice of candidates. The LDF has been nursing hopes that Antony Raju, the incumbent MLA of LDF-ally Janadhipathya Kerala Congress, who was disqualified following his conviction in an evidence-tampering case dating back to 1990, will get a favourable verdict from the higher courts. However, with the Kerala High Court refusing to suspend the conviction of the former Transport Minister, the front has been scrambling to identify a suitable replacement. Although Mr.Raju is learnt to have suggested a couple of names, the front is insistent on having a candidate with assured winnability. In the weeks following Mr.Raju’s conviction, there have been speculations about the CPI(M) taking over the seat and fielding an Independent. However, the party chose to let its ally keep the sole seat that it is currently holding and wait for the higher court verdict, which has now turned unfavourable. The Kerala Congress (M) had also staked its claim for the seat, although it was not been able to zero in on a suitable candidate. The Congress’s decision to hand over the seat to C.P.John, general secretary of UDF-ally Communist Marxist Party (CMP), has not gone down well with former Health Minister V.S.Sivakumar, who won from the constituency twice, in 2011 and 2016, before losing to Mr.Raju in 2021. Though the party has attempted to placate Mr.Sivakumar by offering the Aruvikkara seat, his supporters have pointed at his influence among the various religious and caste communities in the Thiruvananthapuram constituency as a factor to be considered. The CMP, on the other hand, leans on the strength of its own history to lay claim to the seat. M.V. Raghavan, who formed the CMP after expulsion from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)], had won from the constituency way back in 2001. The constituency had slightly different contours back then, when it was known as Thiruvananthapuram West. This will be the first time in two and a half decades that a Congress candidate will not be contesting in the seat. In the case of the NDA, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which was a marginal player in the constituency till a decade ago, made its presence felt for the first time in 2016. That year, it fielded cricketer Sreesanth, leading to an increase in vote share from 10.76% to 27.54%. The vote share remained the same in 2021 too, when G.Krishnakumar contested from the seat. Despite the limitations that the BJP faces in the constituency which has a partly-coastal character, it realises that a stronger candidate can take the party to the next level.