Kerala local body polls: Outgoing Mayor Arya Rajendran’s absence from the fray, governance record dominate Thiruvananthapuram Corporation campaign

Outgoing Thiruvananthapuram Corporation Mayor Arya Rajendran is not in the fray for the 2025 local elections in Kerala. However, Ms. Rajendran’s conspicuous absence from the coveted mayoral race and her governance record continues to have a significant impact on the high-octane campaign for the Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation.

The CPI(M)’s surprise decision to disrupt aging and build political power structures in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation in 2021 by nominating Ms. Rajendran as Mayor is likely to have prompted the Congress and the BJP to try similar dramatic turns in candidate announcement in 2025.

First, the BJP’s fielding of former Director General of Police R. Sreelekha from Sasthamangalam district has triggered speculations that the former ranking officer is a potential mayoral candidate.

So did the Congress, which selected former MLA K. Sabarinathan to contest from Kowdiar constituency, signaling that the former legislator could be the UDF’s mayoral choice.

Recently, political heavyweights have been involved in the heated debate over the governing legacy of Ms. Rajendran, whose inauguration at the age of 21 made headlines in 2020, drawing encouraging comments from across the political spectrum, including, unsurprisingly, from New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who was then a member of the New York State Assembly.

First, senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala quipped that the Left Democratic Front (LDF) would get “a few more votes” if Ms. Rajendran shifted her residence to Kozhikode.

Mr. Chennithala argued that Ms. Rajendran could not create any ripples as claimed by the CPI(M) and on the contrary, she had “further increased the sufferings of the people” during years of repeated rule by the LDF.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] Member of state secretariat MV Jayarajan took strong exception to Mr Chennithala’s comment. He described it as “immature” for a senior politician like Mr. Chennithala.

In a post on Facebook on Saturday, Mr Jayarajan said “nobody can erase” Ms Rajendran’s legacy as the country’s youngest Mayor. “He won the national award for best Mayor. I expected Mr. Chennithala to ask youngsters like Ms. Rajendran to intervene more strongly in public life. Instead, his words seemed to echo the sentiments of Congress workers who are perpetually afraid of Ms. Rajendran’s performance,” he said.

Earlier, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State president Rajeev Chandrasekhar had come down hard on Ms. Rajendran and stated that the LDF had removed her from the fray to “mitigate the anti-incumbency anger of the voters”.

Ms. Rajendran, however, defended her tenure, saying the LDF had done more for Thiruvananthapuram than Mr. Chandrasekhar and the BJP had done.