LDF takes comfort in vote share numbers in Thiruvananthapuram Corporation

The Left Democratic Front (LDF), which in the past two days, has been attempting to study the root causes of the fall of over 20 seats in its tally in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation in the local body polls, is taking some consolation from the fact that the front’s vote share has not fallen in proportion. Sources from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] are also pointing at the United Democratic Front’s (UDF) numbers in the wards won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to bolster their claim that the LDF’s defeat had more underlying reasons than what was obvious.

In over 40 of the 50 seats which the BJP had won, the UDF had turned up third, with the Congress-led front not managing to get more than 1,000 votes in as many as 25 wards. In some wards, the UDF did not manage to get even 500 votes. This scenario, according to the sources, has made the difference in a few wards in which the BJP won by margins of less than 100 votes.

On Monday, CPI(M) John Brittas tweeted a comparison between the number of votes received by the three major fronts in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the 2025 local body polls to claim that the LDF’s vote share actually went up. According to him, the BJP’s vote share went down from 2,13,214 votes in the 2024 polls to 1,65,891 votes in the 2025 local body polls, while that of the UDF went down from 1,84,727 to 1,25,984 votes. On the other hand, the LDF’s went up from 1,29,048 to 1,67,522 votes.

Though the voting patterns vary significantly between Lok Sabha and local body elections, Mr. Brittas wrote that those including Congress Working Committee member and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor, who are creating a narrative of “historic performance of the BJP,” are ignoring the reality evident in the figures.