In a clear-cut mandate, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) has won the 2026 Assembly election in Kerala with a vote share that is the coalition’s highest since the 2001 election. After a decade in Opposition, the UDF has been rewarded with a 46.55% vote share, surpassed only by its 2001 performance of 49.05%. It’s a gain of 7.67 percentage points over its 2021 vote share. The jump has translated into a seat gain of 62, taking the UDF to 102 seats in 2026, nearly three-fourths of the 140 seats in the Assembly.

Conversely, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) has experienced a drop of 7.1 percentage points from its 2021 performance, polling 37.34% of the vote and falling 64 seats from its 2021 tally of 99, to just 35 seats in 2026. This is the LDF’s worst Assembly performance in over four decades. In every Assembly election since 1982, the coalition had polled at least 43.5% of the vote.

Its previous low was 43.48% in 2016 and 43.7% in 2001. The 2026 figure of 37.34% is more than six percentage points below that previous floor, and over 11 points below the LDF’s 2006 high of 48.63%. In a State whose politics has alternated between the two fronts with only one exception — the 2021 Assembly elections — since 1982, the scale of the LDF’s collapse is without precedent.

In 2021, the Pinarayi Vijayan-led coalition had broken the cycle of incumbent removal and secured a rare second consecutive term, a phenomenon previously limited to the 1970s. The byelections and local body polls preceding this Assembly election had pointed to a change in the benches, but the LDF’s reverses in 2026 have gone well beyond what those signals indicated.

The LDF includes the communist parties, the Kerala Congress (Mani) or KC(M), and others, with the alliance also backing several Independent candidates across the State. Both the CPI(M) and the CPI registered similar vote shares, close to 39%, in the seats they contested, but the KC(M), smaller LDF allies and the LDF-backed Independents underperformed relative to the front’s overall vote share. The CPI(M), which contested 77 seats, has been reduced to 26, a loss of 36 seats from 2021, while the CPI dropped from 17 to eight of the 24 it contested.

The UDF includes the Congress, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), the Kerala Congress (KC), and others. The Congress contested 92 seats and won 63, an improvement of 42 seats over 2021, on a 7.14-point gain in contested vote share to 45.03%. The IUML, which contested 26 seats, polled 52.54% of the vote in those constituencies — the highest contested-seat vote share for any party across the alliances — and won 22 of them, against 15 in 2021. The IUML had outperformed the Congress in vote share within its contested seats in the previous Assembly polls; doing so again has helped the UDF as a whole gain a substantial number of seats. The Kerala Congress, contesting eight seats, won seven.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which drew a blank in 2021, has increased its tally to its highest ever in the State, even if a marginal three seats. The NDA’s vote share rose 1.79 percentage points to 14.2%, while the BJP itself polled 16.04% in the seats it contested, having shared seats with its allies, the BDJS and the Twenty20 party.

Regional break-up

The Malabar region, which has a higher proportion of Muslims and Christians than the rest of the State, lent the UDF its sharpest edge: the LDF lost or trailed in 20 seats it had previously held in the region, while the UDF secured 50.29% of the votes there with more than half of all votes cast in Malabar. The UDF’s performance was strong across all three regions, with vote shares of 45.27% in Cochin, 43.21% in Travancore, and 50.29% in Malabar.

Conversely, the LDF’s vote share declined consistently across all three regions, settling within a narrow 36.6–38% band, and helping it retain a high of just 16 seats in the Cochin region on a 37.96% vote share. The Travancore region, where the LDF held 40 seats in 2021, now returns just 11, which is a 29-seat collapse in the southern region that historically swings the most.

The NDA won all its three seats in Travancore, where its vote share rose 3 percentage points to 17.78% and this was the alliance’s largest regional swing. The BJP’s vote share in contested seats has risen across all regions, continuing a steady climb in its Assembly vote share since 2001. Its 16.03% in contested seats this time is roughly thrice its 2001 figure, and a high, despite the party contesting fewer seats than in 2021.

How the alliances performed

While the sitting Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan eventually managed a win, albeit at a much-reduced margin compared to 2021, 13 of his Cabinet colleagues were voted out. A majority of the LDF Ministers had fought the elections from their sitting seats. The Chief Minister had initially trailed in the Dharmadam constituency, but eventually won over V.P. Abdul Rasheed of the Congress.

The UDF’s decisive victory ended the LDF’s 10-year rule in Kerala. The Congress and its key ally, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), put up their best showing in decades. Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan claimed that the Congress had won the highest number of seats in years.

The BJP won from three Assembly constituencies — Nemom, Kazhakoottam and Chathannoor. BJP Kerala President Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that these wins were a reply to the Congress and CPI(M)’s assertions that it will not get even one seat.

Published – May 06, 2026 07:00 am IST

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses a gathering during a public meeting in Palakkad on March 29, 2026. Photo: narendramodi.in