Nilambur: Will CPM and CM Pinarayi Vijayan get the message after heavy loss?

One feels sorry for M. Swaraj, the CPM candidate who ended a distant second to Aryadan Shoukath in the Nilambur by-election.

Choosing him was the only right decision the CPM made when it came to this election – and it was a task that Swaraj took up earnestly right down to the last day before polling. But there is only so much that being earnest can do when it comes to winning or losing elections.

The CPM lost it when it delayed picking a candidate even as the Congress announced theirs and went about putting together a bona fide plan to get Shoukath elected. And all through the campaigning, the CPM was throwing attacks that never seemed to stick against the Congress. So much so it felt as if the CPM was hoping the third serious candidate in the fray – ex-MLA P.V. Anvar – would hurt the Congress’ prospects more than to the CPM.  (Even when Anvar’s one-point agenda was to bring an end to ‘Pinarayism’…)

And capping it all was the CPM’s Kerala state secretary M. V. Govindan’s inane comments about having a pact with the RSS – all the way back in the 1970s. Seriously? Is there any rationale to even mention it during an election in 2025?

The Nilambur electorate gave their thoughts in what they were thinking of the CPM and the LDF government, delivering an 11,707 vote victory for Shoukath.

All of which leads us to the next big question – will Pinarayi Vijayan get the message that things are not going to be easy in the months leading to the May 2026 Kerala state elections? If just a month ago political analysts were willing to consider a possible ‘Pinarayi 3.0’, the Nilambur results will have blown that off.

Being in denial that the state government – and ministers - needs to start functioning better is not going to help. Some of the ministers just haven’t got a clue of how to be better at their jobs, even more than 4 years in those roles. In an ideal world, Pinarayi Vijayan would undertake a cabinet reshuffle to remove the most inconsequential ministers – and get in new blood. But will the CM even try?

The government has been hemorrhaging goodwill, and all of which was in clear evidence in Nilambur. The results of what is after all an inconsequential election – given that the current Assembly only has months left – matter. And matter dearly for the CM and the CPM.

Because the Congress seems to have – based on all the evidence of the last few days – got its act together, for a change. The reconstituted Kerala unit seems to be gelling, and V. D. Satheesan has gotten really good in putting together a strategy that can deliver him the chief minister’s robes. (Something that eluded the previous Leader of the Opposition, Ramesh Chennithala…)

Can the CM Pinarayi Vijayan come up with a Plan B that can deliver a 3.0?