It is a straight fight between LDF, UDF in Nilambur, says Congress

The Congress-led United Democratic Front’s (UDF) sidestepped questions about the purported political fallout from All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) State coordinator P.V. Anvar’s decision to plough his own furrow in the Nilambur Assembly byelection and stressed the impending ballot box battle was solely between the ruling front and the Opposition.

Inaugurating the UDF’s election convention in Nilambur on Monday, All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary (Organisation) K.C. Venugopal said belated entrants into the electoral fray, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), were not a factor in the crucial bypoll.

Mr. Venugopal said the BJP’s indecision over fielding a candidate and cobbling together a campaign spearheaded by a political lightweight poached from another party at the last minute smacked of a sly attempt to stack the decks in favour of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Nilambur.

“I sense a replay of the CPI(M)-BJP nexus that gifted the NDA the Thrissur Lok Sabha seat in 2024,” he said.

Mr. Venugopal said Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had said a “betrayal” precipitated the Nilambur bypoll. He said Mr. Vijayan had betrayed Nilambur which gave the LDF two terms by demonising the Malappuram electorate as gold smugglers, hawala agents and economic offenders who fund anti-national activities. Mr. Vijayan forgot the brave martyrs of Malappuram who died fighting the colonial forces.

Mr. Venugopal alleged that Mr. Vijayan had accused the IUML leadership of harbouring fundamentalist forces, forgetting that the Thangal family had played a vital role in promoting communal harmony during tense times, including the demolition of the Babri Masjid. He accused Mr. Vijayan of deliberately avoiding the site of the NH-66 collapse in Malappuram to avoid offending the BJP-led Central government.

“The Chief Minister has not uttered a word against the entrenched corruption in the construction of highways in Kerala, pussyfooting around the issue to avoid offending the powers that be at the centre and claiming credit for the scheme through embellished social media reels,” he said.

Mr. Venugopal termed the Nilambur bypoll as the semi-finals before the 2026 Assembly polls. The AICC general secretary in charge of Kerala, Deepa Dasmunshi, said the bypoll was more of a quarter final. “We have the local body polls and then the Assembly polls”, she said. 

Ms. Dasmunshi seemed seeking to dampen speculation that the IUML was upset over Congress shutting the door on TMC leader P.V. Anvar and provoking the latter to throw his hat into the ring. “The UDF stands as one,” she said.

The LDF campaign sought to make much of the fact that most of the Thangal family, including IUML president Syed Sadikali Shihab Thangal, had not attended the UDF election convention.

IUML leader P.K. Kunhalikutty said Mr. Thangal had rung him from Makkah, where the latter had gone for Haj, to enquire about the rally and other political developments.

Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan and KPCC president Sunny Joseph, MLA, also spoke.

Published - June 02, 2025 09:12 pm IST