After Anvar’s resignation, parties gear up for likely bypoll to Kerala’s Nilambur
Thiruvananthapuram: With Kerala Assembly Speaker A.N. Shamseer accepting the resignation of two-time Left Independent legislator P.V. Anvar, the Nilambur Assembly constituency is now vacant and may witness a tough fight among the stakeholders.
Nilambur has been predominantly a Congress party stronghold, but Anvar broke the hold when he defeated the then-sitting legislator and Congress veteran Aryadan Mohammed’s son Aryadan Shoukat in the 2016 Assembly polls.
Mohammed after a long inning where he won nonstop from 1987 till 2011, quit active politics in 2016. The Congress later fielded Shoukat, but Anvar backed by the CPI(M)-led Left Front defeated him and he (Anvar) won again in the 2021 polls.
Since September 2024 after being the biggest supporter of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Anvar became his biggest critic. He levelled grave allegations against CM Vijayan and the way he ran the government.
Anvar shocked everyone when he quit as a legislator after saying that he would be taking membership in the All India Trinamool Congress. On Monday, he submitted his resignation to Speaker Shamseer who accepted it in the evening, clearing the decks for yet another by-election.
After his resignation, Anvar said his only agenda from now on is to bring down the Vijayan government and for that, he has extended his unconditional support to the Congress-led UDF and also made it clear that he is not going to contest the by-election.
State CPI(M) secretary M.V. Govindan on Tuesday said that the Left Democratic Front is ready to fight bypoll and sees the resignation of Anvar as a non-event. “We are ready for the upcoming election and if it will be a party or an Independent candidate is a thing that has to be decided,” said Govindan.
Incidentally, Kerala is going to witness a series of elections and the three political fronts will see the Nilambur by-election as a dress rehearsal for the local bodies polls scheduled later in the year and the grand final — the 2026 Assembly polls. The Nilambur constituency has been the one which is a direct battle between the Congress-led UDF and the CPI(M)-led Left and, hence, the BJP-led NDA will only be contesting the polls as a formality.
For the Congress-led UDF, it’s a must-win battle as they want to regain it after Anvar defeated Shoukat in 2016 and for CM Vijayan, it’s going to be one to prove that there is no anti-incumbency even after being in power for nearly nine years, a legislative record for the state.