Padmaja Venugopal on election setback, Silverline project and Congress leadership

Padmaja Venugopal, daughter of legendary Congress leader K Karunakaran who was the chief minister of Kerala for several years is no new name in Kerala politics. She has been very active in KPCC over the past few decades and is known for taking strong stands on issues within and outside the party. In the recently […]

Kerala CPIM warns of Islamist, Christian extremism on campuses

Abandoning its long-held restraint when it comes to commenting on extremists originating from minority communities, the Kerala unit of CPIM has included warnings about ‘attempts to spread extremism’ among students belonging to Muslim and Christian communities in Kerala. The warning, contained in this year’s guidebook for student leaders, was in addition to the traditional instruction […]

How Congress, BJP underestimated Pinarayi Vijayan

Keralites overwhelmingly voted to retain the government of Pinarayi Vijayan in Kerala, breaking from a nearly half-a-century-old tradition of swapping the party in power every five years. Several factors have helped ensure a second term for Vijayan, but perhaps the most crucial has been the decisive and efficacious leadership shown by the politician during the […]

Pinarayi Vijayan most popular among Hindus, Chandy leads among minorities

Even as one survey after another predict a win for the incumbent Left Front alliance in Kerala, an opinion poll conducted by the Media One news channel has thrown up some interesting figures on Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s support levels among various religious communities. Pinarayi Vijayan, an atheist and a communist, is four times as […]

Asianet News Opinion Poll predicts LDF win in Kerala assembly polls

The first opinion poll ahead of Kerala’s assembly elections in April next year has predicted a narrow win for the ruling Left Democratic Front, while also forecasting a 20% increase in vote share for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. The opinion poll, conducted between June 18 and 29 among 10,409 persons, predicts that the Left […]

Pinarayi Vijayan targets Jamaat-e-Islami alliance with Congress front

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has, for the first time, used his daily Coronavirus update to attack a newspaper’s coverage of the crisis in the first sign that the Left Front is worried about the work-in-progress alliance of the Kerala unit of Jamaat-e-Islami — which works to establish the Islamic way of life in India […]

AAP office-bearers in Kerala resign en masse to join Swaraj India

Swaraj India, the fledgling political party under the leadership of former AAP leaders such as Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, announced that a large chunk of AAP’s office bearers in Kerala have joined the party. These include 77 elected State Coordination Committee members and around 700 volunteers, according to a statement from the party. Among […]

Saffron outfit claims to bring down film set in Kerala

A Facebook page claiming to represent Praveen Togadia’s AntarRashtreeya Hindu Parishad — which positions itself as an ‘alternative Hindu organization’ to the Sangh Parivar in Kerala — has claimed responsibility for the destruction of a Church built as part of a movie set on the Periyar riverbed in Kerala. The page posted pictures of some […]

Man commits suicide after wine shops shut in coronavirus lockdown

A 38-year-old man from Kunnamkulam in Kerala reportedly committed suicide on the third day of the pan-India Coronavirus shutdown in Kerala because he could not get his daily dose of alcohol. Sanoj, a resident of Thuvanoor near Kunnamkulam was found dead today morning. According to the statements of his relatives, he was showing signs of […]

No Ayyappa To Help: BJP’s vote share falls 31.5% in Pala bypoll

Five months, it seems, is a long time in politics, certainly long enough for the electorate in Kerala to forgive, if not forget, the Left Front’s decision to ‘desecrate’ the holy shrine of Sabarimala. The Left Front has emerged as the undisputed and unexpected winner in today’s results of the high-profile Pala by-election, but it […]

FIR against Kerala journalist after questions on CM flood relief fund utilization

A case has been filed by the Kerala Police against new media entrepreneur and journalist Shajan Skariah of MarunadanMalayali.com for ‘misleading essential services forces’ and ‘causing nuisance’ after he questioned the utilization of the funds collected in the aftermath of last year’s funds. Skariah had put up a video on Facebook and Youtube in which […]

Not just Hindus, minorities too abandoned the Left in Kerala

While the Left Front was expected to lose Hindu votes due to the Sabarimala issue, a closer look at voting numbers from Kerala reveals that Sabarimala hit both LDF and UDF, but the UDF was able to sail through with increased support from minorities. Even as Hindu voters shifted their votes to the BJP to […]

Prominent Kerala politician slammed for “misogynistic, retrograde” campaign video

Congress leader K Sudhakaran, the UDF candidate from Kannur, found himself fending off some unwanted attention after a campaign video irked netizens for ostensibly portraying women in bad light. Netizens accused the video, shared by Sudhakaran’s official Facebook page, of sending a message that educating women is pointless and that they can never do a […]