Kerala Assembly Election 2026: An interesting battle on the cards in Piravom, a traditional UDF bastion

Piravom Assembly constituency in Ernakulam has remained a bastion of the United Democratic Front (UDF) for a long time.

The Left Democratic Front (LDF) has been able to breach the Kerala Congress (Jacob) fort only twice. Gopi Kottamurikkal and M.J. Jacob of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) won the elections held in 1987 and 2006, respectively. Mr. Kottamurikkal had won the seat by a margin of 16,480 seats in 1987. The United front suffered a jolt in the election following the presence of C. Poulose, a Congress rebel, who secured 24,840 votes after he contested as an Independent.

It was the Kerala Congress stalwart T.M. Jacob, who had won the seat five times in 1977, 1991, 1996, 2001 and 2011. He managed to scrape through in the final lap after beating Mr. Jacob of the CPI(M) by a narrow margin of 157 votes in the 2011 elections.

His son, Anoop Jacob, entered the electoral scene following the death of his father on October 31, 2011. He won the by-election held in 2012 after defeating the Left front candidate Mr. Jacob, by a margin of 12,070 votes. There was no looking back since then as he won the constituency in 2016 and 2021. Though his lead slipped to 6,195 votes in 2016, he trounced his opponent and Kerala Congress (M) candidate Sindhumol Jacob by a thumping margin of 25,364 votes amid the Left wave in 2021.

Mr. Jacob’s emphatic victory was aided by the resentment among the rank and file of the CPI(M) and the Kerala Congress (M) over fielding Ms. Jacob, a CPI(M)-backed then block panchayat member from Uzhavoor, as the Kerala Congress (M) candidate. The Kerala Congress (M) camp had witnessed an internal revolt after youth wing leader and seat aspirant Gils Periappuram had put in his papers in protest against his party leadership.

After a lacklustre performance in 2011 when it could garner a meagre 3% of the total vote share, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) handed over the seat to its ally Bharath Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) in 2016. C.P. Sathyan of the BDJS increased the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) vote share to 10.9% after he secured 17,503 votes. However, the graph slipped to 7% in 2021 as the BJP candidate M. Ashish ended up third with 11,021 votes.

The campaign heat has soared in the constituency in this election as Mr. Jacob is hoping for his fourth consecutive win and a spike in his victory margin. The Kerala Congress (M) is in no mood to yield as it has fielded Sabu K. Jacob, former Congress chairperson of Piravom municipality, as the Left front candidate.

The BJP has handed over the seat to its new ally, Twenty20, this time. Jibi Abraham, entrepreneur and former expatriate, is the NDA candidate. The agrarian distress and the declining prospects for rubber growers figure among the key issues in the constituency dominated by farmers. The position to be adopted by the Jacobite community, which has a sizable presence in the constituency, is eagerly awaited in view of its continuing rift with the Orthodox faction in the Malankara Church dispute.