The Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front made a surprise comeback, winning the Kerala local body elections on Sunday. The LDF, which lost the last elections dramatically, has staged a comeback, while the Bharatiya Janata Party made a strong showing and the Congress-led Democratic United Front a poor one. While it was thought that the BJP might pull off a coup in the elections, it failed to emerge the single last largest party in most areas, though it made significant gains, emerging the main opposition and one corporation and six municipalities. In particular, the BJP won a surprise 34 out of the 100 divisions in the Thiruvananthapuram corporation.

There are 21,000 seats up for grabs in the three-tier local governance structure, which includes village and block panchayats, as well as municipalities and the corporations. The BJP had cashed in on caste and communal politics in the state and joined hands with the backward Ezhava community, numerically the largest Hindu caste in Kerala. The results at these elections could foreshadow those of the 2016 Assembly elections in the state.