The post-polling press conferences by the CPM-led LDF and the Congress-led UDF in Nilambur set a telling contrast -- the LDF appeared like it was preparing to explain a loss, while the UDF looked like it was positioning for a win.

Both fronts claimed that the provisional voter turnout of 73.26% -- higher than the Wayanad Lok Sabha byelection turnout in Nilambur segment -- despite the rain, signalled a favourable outcome. But with high fence-sitter turnout and slim margins in the eight local bodies that make up the constituency, there's little to interpret until booth-level numbers emerge.

Still, the tone of the press conferences betrayed the internal mood. CPM politburo member A Vijayaraghavan sounded defensive and accusatory through his 17-minute briefing, despite claiming a win for LDF candidate M Swaraj "with a good margin".

After the Lok Sabha election and before the next Assembly election in 2026, the UDF picked one constituency and engineered a byelection by making the independent MLA -- backed by the LDF -- resign, Vijayaraghavan said. "It was not a righteous way. It was a conspiracy."

But why? "They are trying to manufacture an electoral victory before 2026," he said, perhaps fearing that it would set a narrative. To be sure, Nilambur's LDF-backed independent MLA P V Anvar had an acrimonious split. He first raised the issue of criminalisation of the police force and targeted officers considered close to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, and his political secretary, before directly criticising Vijayan. After the fallout, Anvar tried to join the UDF, and when that failed, he entered the fray as an independent candidate.

However, during the campaign, the Chief Minister called Anvar a betrayer and his resignation as an MLA treachery, but the LDF never alleged his resignation was a UDF ploy until the voting was over.

"The UDF tried a shortcut. They tried to sabotage the people’s verdict (by orchestrating Anvar's resignation), the people's will. Kerala will not accept that," said Vijayaraghavan, a former convenor of LDF and former interim state secretary of CPM. "They are trying to manufacture an electoral victory before 2026."

He insisted that keen observers of Kerala politics knew the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government was held in high regard. Vijayaraghavan doubled down on a long-standing LDF charge -- that the UDF courts communal forces. He had earlier claimed that Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's victories in Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency were because of support from "the worst fundamentalist groups".

He alleged that Nilambur was a test run for a "dangerous plan" ahead of the 2026 elections, pointing to what he claimed was an alliance between the UDF and Jamaat-e-Islami. "Kerala’s UDF is the world’s first political formation to give associate status to an extreme communal force," he said. It has not. Jamaat-e-Islami's political front, the Welfare Party of India had only pledged its votes for the UDF candidate.

But Vijayaraghavan said the UDF has "even prepared to field their candidates in the next assembly election". Critics, however, note that the CPM has long used Jamaat-e-Islami as a dog whistle to retain Hindu votes drifting to the BJP.

In contrast, the UDF press conference highlighted the unity in its camp, its improved booth-level performance, and the presence of national leaders during the campaign.

Addressing the post-election press conference, Congress state working president and MLA A P Anil Kumar, who was in charge of UDF candidate Aryadan Shoukath's election campaign, said he was expecting a bigger-than-earlier predicted victory margin going by the depth of anti-incumbency. "We’re not predicting the exact margin. But we’re expecting it to go up from the 15,000-vote lead we had earlier projected," he said.

Candidate Aryadan Shoukath’s personal connections and work in the constituency would translate into votes, he said and added that the UDF expects leads in all panchayats. "The result on the 23rd will be a direct response to Pinarayi Vijayan, the LDF government ... and Vijayaraghavan," Anil Kumar said.

Throughout the campaign, the UDF focused on issues of governance -- from wild animal attacks to the state’s alleged snubbing of ASHA workers. Underneath, however, they deployed sharper strategies: invoking the Chief Minister’s controversial interview with The Hindu, the police’s alleged overreporting of Malappuram crime data, and the CPM’s silence on SNDP’s Vellappally Natesan's communal remarks to alienate Muslim voters from the LDF or consolidate them behind Shoukath.

The press conferences, perhaps, provided early insight into the LDF and UDF’s 2026 strategies, but for the Nilambur verdict, the wait ends on June 23.