Kerala Assembly polls 2026: Inter-faith gestures from election scenes flooding social media

Amid a heated political battle, candidates of various parties are increasingly stepping into spaces of multiple religious faiths, in an apparent bid to convince the voters.

While it’s common for candidates, cutting across party lines, to visit worshipping places and attend religious events during campaigns, incidents of many of them taking part in customs and rituals outside their religious identity have also been on the rise, of late. Such moments have also been finding instant traction on social media.

Social media were flooded with reels of candidates from different faiths attending the Palm Sunday processions in churches in their constituencies. Congress candidate in Kochi constituency, Mohammed Shiyas, was seen attending the Palm Sunday prayers at Santa Cruz Cathedral Basilica holding tender coconut leaves, along with hundreds of faithful.

A reel posted on Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State president Rajeev Chandrasekharan’s social media handles showed him immersed in Palm Sunday prayers at St. Antony’s Church at Nemom, where he is caught in a triangular contest against V. Sivankutty of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] and Congress’s K.S. Sabarinadhan.

In the Aroor Assembly segment in Alappuzha district, Daleema Jojo was seen participating in the traditional ‘para nirakkal’ ritual at a temple in Arookutty. P.V. Anvar, backed by the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Beypore, has posted a video of him being blessed by a Theyyam during a temple festival in the constituency. Videos of candidates from multiple faiths joining Eid-ul-Fitr celebrations and hugging the faithful in a customary manner have also found their way to social media.

A reel showing a Muslim woman seeking the birth star of Ramesh Pisharody, the Congress candidate in Palakkad, for a friend who wishes to make an offering for him has also gone viral during the ongoing poll season.

Not surprisingly, much of such content on social media comes with the caption ‘the real Kerala story’, in reference to Bollywood films that allegedly portrayed the State in a poor light by linking it with religious extremism. The reels have also drawn comments terming the gestures as mere election stunts.

Writer Sunil P. Elayidom attributed the display of religious harmony by political leaders to the State’s fundamental nature of religious sharing. “We have a long tradition of religious sharing. It might have been weakened, but not broken. Politicians, across ideological lines, are aware that they cannot remain popular in Kerala without engaging with such a space. They must be trying to make use of the space for political gains, but still the social message their gestures carry is important,” he said.