In a constituency long considered a safe bastion where victory was certain even before counting began, Dharmadam witnessed an unprecedented electoral shake-up as Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan saw his once formidable majority sharply reduced amid a strong United Democratic Front (UDF) surge.

Riding what observers described a UDF wave, Youth Congress State general secretary V.P. Abdul Rasheed delivered a stiff challenge to the Left’s “Captain”, unsettling the CPI(M)’s citadel and sending shock waves across Kerala’s political landscape.

The counting trends initially pointed toward a dramatic upset. In the first round itself, Mr. Rasheed took a lead of 733 votes over the Chief Minister. His advantage widened to 2,523 votes in the second round and further to 3,100 votes in the third. Mr. Vijayan continued to trail by 2,212 votes in the fourth round and 1,090 votes in the fifth. The momentum persisted until the sixth round where Mr. Rasheed maintained a lead of 647 votes.

It was only in the seventh round that Mr. Vijayan went ahead, leading by 1,536 votes. From then on, he gradually consolidated his position, increasing his margin through subsequent rounds before eventually securing victory with a majority of 19,247 votes.

However, the result marked a steep decline from the 2021 Assembly election, when Mr. Vijayan had won by a commanding margin of 50,123 votes. The present majority is barely a third of that figure, signalling a significant erosion of support in what has been a CPI(M) stronghold.

A senior Congress leader in Kannur remarked that “for Pinarayi Vijayan to win Dharmadam with a margin below 20,000 is almost equivalent to a defeat,” underlining the scale of the setback for the Left.

Reacting after the results, Mr. Rasheed said the outcome reflected a substantial shift in voter sentiment, even though he faced constraints in freely campaigning and directly reaching voters in what he described as a tightly controlled political environment.

“There was hardly any space to campaign freely or even meet voters directly in what is considered a CPI(M) stronghold. Despite that, such a steep fall in the Chief Minister’s majority shows that votes flowed to us even from party bastions,” he said.

Historical data further underscores the shift. Mr. Vijayan had secured 87,329 votes in 2016 and improved his tally to 95,522 votes in 2021. This time, his vote count dropped to 85,614, with the margin shrinking to 19,247.

The Dharmadam constituency comprises eight panchayats, seven of which are governed by the Left Democratic Front, with only Kadambur aligned with the UDF. However, early leads for Mr. Rasheed were attributed to significant vote swings from core Left areas such as Chembilode, Vengad, and Anjarakandy.

The trend was not entirely unexpected. During the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the UDF had led in 80 of the 165 booths in the constituency, suggesting a continuing electoral undercurrent.

Unlike previous elections, where Mr. Vijayan had limited his campaign appearances, this time he conducted an extensive outreach, travelling widely across the constituency, meeting a large number of voters, and even reaching out through letters to those he could not meet in person. Despite the intensified campaign, the expected consolidation of votes did not materialise, reflecting a notable shift in the political mood of the electorate.