Assembly Elections 2026: Kerala’s Palakkad turns into a high-stakes battleground

CPM leaders and workers in the Palakkad assembly constituency in north Kerala are divided over the selection of their candidate in what the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) considers a crucial seat for them. It is also regarded as a highly religiously polarised constituency.

It is here that BJP has fielded its firebrand leader Sobha Surendran with the hope that this time around it can rewrite the rules of engagement in Kerala’s bipolar politics dominated by the CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF).

When Sobha Surendran filed her nomination papers, Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel was present, underscoring the importance the ruling party at the Centre places on the seat and her candidature. The presence of high-profile BJP leaders from outside Kerala was notable when BJP state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar and former Union minister V Muraleedharan filed their nomination papers. Both were accompanied by Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma.

Now, at least two CPM leaders in Palakkad that Open spoke to say that the decision to field NMR Razak as an independent candidate backed by the LDF is a mistake because it further polarises the electorate in a constituency that is already deeply divided along religious lines. Many CPM workers and sympathisers also share similar concerns.

A CPM leader argues that Palakkad is a largely urban seat which had decades earlier seen large-scale in-migrations from the countryside of upper castes peeved with the social reforms, land reforms and similar redistribution initiatives pushed by the Communist Party in the late 1950s and the 1960s. “When they realised that their feudal powers had diminished, out of wounded pride the upper classes and former landlords from the villages in the region migrated to urban centres and aligned with the Congress party for long before shifting loyalties to the BJP, especially after Narendra Modi came to power at the Centre in 2014,” says this senior Marxist leader, asking not to be named. Another CPM leader from the district also said that it would have been politically wise to field a party candidate, not the businessman it had finally decided to back — Razak, whose family is famous in the area for their restaurant business. They sell the famous Rowther biriyani through their outlets.

“The Congress candidate is Ramesh Pisharody, a TV show host and stand-up comedian, making him a low-profile candidate by Kerala standards - meaning film stars and entertainers have traditionally failed to make a mark in politics in the state,” a CPM worker from the nearby Ottappalam assembly seat told Open.

However, there are those within the CPM fold who state that Razak can pull in more votes from non-traditional voters of the Left apart from securing the votes of CPM sympathisers. “This constituency has over the past several elections chosen Congress candidates, which means the Left needs more than its traditional voters to be able to win the polls. Razak is the best choice for that same reason,” a senior CPM leader based out of Thiruvananthapuram said. This is the sentiment aired by a section of pro-CPM voters in Palakkad, which has been a hub for anti-Left voters for far too long. For instance, when former CPM lawmaker NN Krishnadas won the Palakkad Lok Sabha elections four times in a row, he had an edge over his rival within the Palakkad assembly seat only in the fourth contest, held in 2004.