Congress in Kerala gears up for 2025 local body polls well in advance

The two-day meeting held in Wayanad also decided to consider BJP's surge in the state seriously and take steps to plug leaks in the Christian and Hindu vote banks that favoured the saffron party.

Thiruvananthapuram: In a bid to take forward the trend in its favour that was seen during the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress leadership in Kerala has decided to intensify campaigns against the lapses of the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front government and to strongly take up local issues.

The two-day meeting held in Wayanad also decided to consider BJP's surge in the state seriously and take steps to plug leaks in the Christian and Hindu vote banks that favoured BJP.

The Congress is also learnt to be taking steps to cash in on the strife within the Left-front and even the CPI(M). The party leaders have also decided to put all internal differences on the back burner.

The meeting decided to give charge of the five municipal corporations in the state to senior leaders like Kerala PCC president K Sudhakaran, opposition leader V D Satheesan and AICC working committee member Ramesh Chennithala.

Sources said that the trend reflected in favour of the Congress in the recently-concluded Lok Sabha election would help the grand old party to stop the flow of its local leaders and workers to the BJP camps. Moreover, the rumbling among a large section in the CPI(M) and some coalition partners of the Left-front after the poll debacle, could be an advantage to the Congress in the local body polls as well as the 2026 Assembly polls.

AICC general secretary K C Venugopal and AICC general secretary in-charge of Kerala Deepa Dasmunshi were among those who attended the meeting.

The 2025 local body election is considered to be a warm-up exercise ahead of 2026 Assembly polls. The state BJP also held a leadership meeting recently to take stock of its preparation for the local polls.