In an election that delivered a near-washout for the CPI(M), some of the most pointed verdicts came not from its opponents but from within three former loyalists who broke ranks, went public with their grievances, and won. Where they lost, they still drew blood.
In Payyannur, V Kunhikrishnan, who earlier this year had been expelled from the party for alleging embezzlement of funds including a martyr's fund, defeated sitting MLA TI Madhusoodanan, the man whose renomination had made him enter the fray, by a margin of 7,487 votes.
Kunhikrishnan had framed his candidacy not as a political contest but as a moral one. "The Left must exist, it is necessary for Kerala. But I do not see the Left candidate in Payyannur as a true Left representative," he had said. The constituency agreed.
In Taliparamba, TK Govindan, a senior CPI(M) district secretariat member who quit over the decision to field PK Shyamala, wife of state secretary MV Govindan who had held the seat for three terms, also won. He had warned the leadership plainly: fielding Shyamala amounted to one person holding a constituency indefinitely, just under a different name. The party did not listen. In this CPI(M) stronghold, Congress-backed Govindan won with a margin of over 12,000 votes.
The most resonant dissident story, however, may belong to former CPI(M) Minister G Sudhakaran, who chose to contest against CPI(M)’s sitting MLA H Salam, and was backed by the UDF. He won by a margin of 27,935 votes.
A former CPI(M) state committee member, Sudhakaran had in the first week of March declared that he would not be renewing his party membership. He cited years of deliberate isolation, public humiliation by senior functionaries, and the steady erosion of basic organisational dignity.
Not every dissident crossed the finish line.
In Ottappalam, PK Sasi – expelled from the the CPI(M) in March 2026 over sexual harassment allegations, having once been suspended and then reinstated in 2019 – contested as a UDF-backed independent. He lost to Adv K Premkumar by a margin of 26,777 votes, with BJP candidate Major Ravi finishing third.
In Kottarakkara, three-time CPI(M) legislator Ayisha Potti, who had joined the Congress ahead of the polls, gave state Finance Minister KN Balagopal a genuine scare before falling short by just 1,012 votes.
Taken together, the dissident map of this election tells a story the CPI(M) will have to reckon with long after the counting is done.
However, luck didn’t favour those who switched to the BJP.
Former Nattika MLA, CC Mukundan of CPI, had joined the BJP after the CPI denied him a seat. He came third in the constituency which saw CPI leader Geetha Gopi winning over congress’ Sunil Laloor over a margin of 7,093 votes. Similar was the fate of former CPI(M) MLA S Rajendran, who contested as the BJP candidate in Devikulam. Rajendran came third in the contest won by F Raja of Congress.
