Kerala electorate has voted for ‘change of government’, says Shafi Parambil

Shafi Parambil, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee working president, has claimed that the State’s electorate has voted for a “change of government” instead of expressing “anti-incumbency” sentiments against the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in the recently concluded Assembly polls.

Addressing the media in Kozhikode on Tuesday (April 14, 2026), the Vadakara MP claimed that the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] would not be able to “compartmentalise” this popular verdict as the “consolidation of votes” by members of a particular caste, religion, or community. “The popular wave against the LDF will not be confined to Ernakulam, Kottayam, Malappuram, Pathanamthitta, Wayanad, and Idukki districts alone, where the United Democratic Front (UDF) will sweep all the seats. Its reflections will also be felt in districts such as Kozhikode, Kollam, Thrissur, and Thiruvananthapuram districts, which are considered to be Left strongholds,” he said. Mr. Parambil claimed that many senior leaders of the CPI(M), including incumbent Ministers, would be defeated this time.

“Even if some of them manages to win, their victory margins are going be too narrow,” he said. The Congress leader claimed that the lack of confidence among the Ministers and senior CPI(M) leaders was evident from the fact that most of them had to restrict their campaign to their respective constituencies. Mr. Parambil also said that the ground-level activists of the CPI(M) were unhappy with the party leadership’s opportunistic electoral dalliance with the BJP and the Social Democratic Party of India. “Their resentment is surely going to impact the results,” he said.