Kerala civic polls: Gearing up for comeback, Congress fields K S Sabarinadhan in Thiruvananthapuram

Thiruvananthapuram: As the BJP has been pinning high hopes of wresting the prestigious Thiruvananthapuram mayor post by winning the city corporation in the upcoming civic body polls, the Congress made a surprise move by announcing young prominent leader K S Sabarinadhan as a candidate, that too ahead of the official declaration of the polls.

Apart from resisting BJP's plans, Congress also wants to regain its lost glory as its number of seats nosedived to just ten seats in the 100 member corporation in the state capital from around 40. It was BJP's surge that proved costly for the Congress.

Sabarinadhan is the son of former Congress leader G Karthikeyan. He entered electoral politics following his father's death. He was MLA from Aruvikkara in the suburbs of Thiruvananthapuram from 2015 to 2021. He is an engineering graduate and MBA holder and also worked with the Tata group earlier.

Even as the CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) had been managing to maintain a majority in the corporation over the last many decades, the BJP-led NDA's surge was indeed giving anxious moments for the party. The city mayor post grabbed national attention in 2020 as CPM's Arya Rajendran became the youngest mayor in the country.

The city corporation witnessed NDA's surge in 2015 elections as it won 35 seats from around five earlier. The Congress-led UDF suffered the biggest loss of 19 seats as its seats were reduced to 21 from 40, whereas the LDF managed to remain on top with 43 seats even as it lost eight seats.

UDF's setback continued in 2020 too as it lost 11 more seats and reduced to 10, whereas the LDF gained by improving the number of seats to 52 from 43. The NDA retained the 35 number.

This time the BJP is making all out efforts with direct intervention of the party new state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar to win the city corporation and thereby set a trend for the assembly polls that are hardly six months away.

Congress senior leader K Muraleedharan has been given the charge of the Thiruvananthapuram corporation election and the party will be kicking off the campaign on Monday itself. A total of 48 candidates were announced on Sunday and the remaining UDF candidates will be announced shortly.