Kerala Assembly polls 2026: All major fronts hopeful of a win in Nemom

Nemom is a sort of gateway to the Thiruvananthapuram city for those entering Kerala’s capital from the Kanniyakumari side. For the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the constituency became a gateway to the Kerala Assembly when O. Rajagopal won from here in 2016. But, five years later, the gateway would be closed for the party with V. Sivankutty of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] reclaiming the constituency which he had won comfortably in 2011.

This year, Mr. Sivankutty is again back in the fray, in a constituency which has attracted attention from across the country due to the massive push that the BJP has been making, with its State president Rajeev Chandrasekhar leading the charge. K.S. Sabarinadhan, former Congress MLA from Aruvikkara and now a councillor in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, is putting up a stiff fight to reclaim a constituency which the Congress has not won after the delimitation of 2008.

As his open jeep, followed by a bike rally of CPI(M) workers, moves through a narrow pathway amid a residential area near the Nemom junction with densely-packed houses, Mr. Sivankutty waves to many of the onlookers with easy familiarity. This grassroot connect, earned from years of ground-level interactions as a party worker, panchayat president, Corporation Mayor and MLA has been his USP in recent elections. In a conversation with The Hindu amid the hectic campaigning, he contrasts his background with the corporate past of Mr. Chandrasekhar.

“All my life I have worked to address the myriad issues faced by the people. I think this election might be easier compared to the previous time. My campaign is focussing on the welfare and developmental efforts taken up by the government, including the ₹900-crore developmental works I implemented in this constituency. My performance as a Minister handling general education and labour has also won appreciation from the people here,” says Mr. Sivankutty.

Much of Mr. Chandrasekhar’s campaign management is anchored from the ‘Vikasita Nemom HQ,’ a three-storied building with plush interiors, near Kaimanam, where a bevy of party workers are involved in a whole lot of online and offline campaign planning operations. The candidate, who also has the responsibility of overseeing the party’s campaign across the State, drops in at the campaign office every day amid his hectic schedule to ensure everything is on track.

“When I came here to contest for the Lok Sabha election, I was a completely new person to the voters. Despite getting just 35 days of campaign time, the Nemom Assembly segment gave me a lead of 22,000 voters. I had said immediately after the elections that I hold a debt of gratitude to the people here and I am now giving back to the people for what they gave me. I moved to Thiruvananthapuram as soon as the Lok Sabha election was over, despite the fact that I am not an MLA or MP,” says Mr. Chandrasekhar.

The thrust of the campaign as his vehicle moves through the Estate ward is aimed at casting the CPI(M)-led LDF and the Congress-led UDF as allies posing as opponents just in Kerala. This messaging is interspersed with the party’s developmental slogan of ‘Vikasita Keralam.’ However, the BJP campaign mostly avoids issues around religion which are usually at the forefront elsewhere in the country. The passing mention of the ‘gold theft’ at Sabarimala is the only aberration.

Over the past week, Mr. Sivankutty and Mr. Chandrasekhar have challenged each other for a debate on development, however things have not progressed beyond open challenges. Though the BJP won a majority of the wards in the Nemom segment in the recent local body elections, a fact which gives much confidence to Mr. Chandrasekhar, Mr. Sivankutty says that the BJP has held most of these wards even in 2021, when he had won.

Mr. Sabarinadhan’s campaign was infused with the energy of up-tempo Telugu songs on Wednesday, as Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy led a roadshow through Nemom. In a seeming return gesture, Mr. Reddy sent the crowd of Congress workers into raptures by using a popular Malayalam movie dialogue, to target Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Once the roadshow is over, Mr. Sabarinadhan scrambles to keep up with the campaign schedule for the day, which is already running two hours late, with several nooks and crannies of the constituency to be covered.

“This time we have huge hopes from the Nemom constituency. It is true that in the last 2-3 elections post delimitation we were unable to emerge victorious. But it still remains a pro-UDF constituency, with the social and political climate now suitable for the Congress. Team UDF is getting overwhelming response from all sections of people. Nemom is very urban but at the same time it has regions of underdevelopment and rural distress. Indira Guarantees that the Congress is putting forward this time will bring about a big change in the lives of people,” says Mr. Sabarinadhan.

Whoever emerges the winner at Nemom constituency is expected to have only a relatively slender victory margin considering the tight, three-cornered nature of the contest.