Why Nilambur bypoll result will tell us if Congress is losing its hold in Kerala

Nilambur is located at the foothills of the Western Ghats, and is part of the Muslim-majority Malappuram district, a stronghold of UDF ally, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML). However, Nilambur is the only constituency in the district where Muslims don’t constitute a majority, albeit marginally. In fact, Nilambur is synonymous with Congress stalwart Aryadan Muhammed, who was an eight-time MLA (1965-2016) from the constituency.

Aryadan wasn’t just another Congress leader. He performed a crucial balancing act in Kerala politics that has been sorely missing ever since he bowed out of electoral politics in 2016. His utility to Congress, and perhaps to the state polity at large, lay in the fact that he would consistently take on the Muslim hardliners and clerics as a liberal Muslim face. And Aryadan did not hesitate to take on ally IUML on many an occasion, helping the Congress to maintain its balancing of community interests. For instance, he went against the IUML and Muslim sentiment in general following the judgment in the Shah Bano case. There is a famous instance of a joint campaign of Aryadan and IUML’s Ebrahim Sulaiman Sait in the 1991 general election:  When the Azaan blared out from a neighbouring mosque Sait halted to offer prayers, while Aryadan went ahead with his campaign.

The war of words that often erupted between Aryadan and the IUML often meant that he would have to fetch votes from beyond the UDF base, and he consistently managed to do that winning six times on the trot from 1987-2016. When he finally bowed out citing his advanced age in 2016, nominating his son Aryadan Shoukath in his stead, the Left supported the Congress defector in PV Anvar to wrest the seat—making dynastic politics its sole plank. That’s history now, and Anvar eventually fell out with the Marxist party, even if there is no love lost between Shoukath and Anvar.

Why Anvar re-entered the fray

When Anvar tendered his resignation in January, he not only expressed his willingness to back the UDF, but also suggested that VS Joy, the Malappuram District Congress Committee (DCC) president, be nominated as its candidate (over Aryadan Shoukath). Now, despite being its prerogative to nominate whosoever it wished, Congress was amenable to field VS Joy over Shoukath, in part to assuage the Syro-Malabar Church, following the Munambam issue and the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Christian pitch.

When Kerala’s Leader of Opposition VD Satheesan met Anvar in Kochi weeks before the notification of the by-poll, he had reportedly assured the latter of Joy’s nomination. However, there was a crucial development between then and the notification of the by-poll: The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) underwent a change of face, with Sunny Joseph replacing K Sudhakaran.

Having taken the Church on board with that move, the Congress felt that it was the perfect opportunity to give Shoukath another chance, having preferred VV Prakash over him in 2021.

The announcement of his arch-nemesis Aryadan Shoukath as the Congress candidate came as a bolt from the blue for Anvar. He, in turn, resolved to contest as an independent, determined to play spoiler.

M Swaraj as Left candidate

CPI (M) eventually named its former Thrippunithura legislator M Swaraj as the LDF candidate.

However, Nilambur is basically a Congress bastion, and more specifically the land of Aryadan Muhammed. What gives the LDF hope beyond Anvar splitting the UDF votes is the BJP’s fielding of a UDF defector on its ticket.

Mohan George is a representative of the Christian settler-farmers in Nilambur, and the BJP assumes that his candidature will result in the erosion of the Congress vote bank. There have been allegations about the Left and the BJP striking a deal based on Mohan George’s candidature, although the saffron party has vehemently ruled it out.

IUML’s predicament

For sure, when Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contested the by-poll in the Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency—of which Nilambur is part—she managed to secure a margin of over 65,000 votes over her Left rival. Muslim voters coalesce behind the UDF candidates in Lok Sabha polls, and hence it may not be fair to extrapolate it to an assembly scenario.

Congress remains quietly confident, and expects the IUML to back it to the hilt, even if the latter had an uneasy equation with Aryadan Muhammed. Shoukath is very much in the mould of his legendary father, although his loss in 2016 left him weak.

When the Panakkad Thangals who give political leadership to the IUML gave the UDF convention a miss, it led to speculation, but more than anyone else, the League understands the importance of the Nilambur result to the assembly election just months away.

If the Marxists somehow still manage to engineer a win through Swaraj’s candidature, it will give the Left the belief that a record-third term may not be a far-fetched proposition after all.