Kochi: For years, residents of Kochi’s Chellanam panchayat saw the sea not as a rhythm but a threat, with tides breaching homes, eating away land, and weakening trust in governments that failed to protect them. After countless protests, human chains, and desperate pleas, the coastal community finally found its own answer in 2020 right before the local body polls through a political uprising shaped by survival.

That uprising was 2020 Chellanam, a collective that rose from anger and solidarity. The members believed that if the mainstream parties could not defend the coast, the people themselves would. In the 2020 local body polls, it shocked the LDF and the UDF by winning eight of 21 seats and shattering the LDF’s absolute majority in the panchayat and eventually seizing power. 

But the wave that lifted it soon receded. Five years later, the outfit that once embodied Chellanam’s defiance has crumbled under defections, internal rifts, and political manoeuvring, thus vanishing from the electoral scene as quickly as it emerged. 

2020 Chellanam’s rise was meteoric. In a panchayat long neglected on issues of sea erosion despite repeated petitions and promises, voters rallied behind 2020 Chellanam with rare unanimity. 

“Our victory overturned the old order. The LDF, which previously held 13 wards, fell to 9. The UDF slid from 7 to 4 and the BJP lost its sole ward. And the independents of 2020 Chellanam emerged as the second-largest bloc, disrupting decades of two-front dominance,” said Charles Biju, who was the convenor of the outfit.

For a moment, it appeared that the people’s movement born of desperation had successfully rewritten political grammar. Moreover, what set the collective apart was its refusal to immediately seek power. 

Despite numbers, 2020 Chellanam abstained from the chairperson election, along with the UDF, allowing LDF members KD Prasad and VA Margaret to assume office. It was a declaration that the movement stood for principles before positions. 

Soon, the outfit’s tally rose to nine seats when a legal challenge over a UDF win resulted in 2020 Chellanam’s Mary Simla being declared elected by the court. With numbers equal to the LDF’s nine, a new political equation took shape. The UDF joined hands with 2020 Chellanam to unseat the LDF leadership through a no-confidence motion. Thus, 2020 Chellanam’s KL Joseph and UDF’s Anila Sebastine became the new president and vice president respectively.

But this political alignment marked the beginning of a period of instability. The LDF retaliated swiftly. Another no-confidence motion ousted Joseph and reinstated Prasad as president. Six months later, the UDF and 2020 Chellanam prepared to bring Prasad down again.

While the UDF and 2020 Chellanam were planning, the LDF staged a coup. In a move that stunned the collective and its supporters, the LDF successfully persuaded Joseph and Simla, two of the outfit’s most visible faces, to defect. 

The duo returned to power as LDF-backed president and vice-president, triggering widespread disillusionment among the group’s core supporters.

According to Biju, the defections were a shattering blow. “Since Joseph and Simla joined the LDF, it was a shock for all. We had nothing to say to the voters who trusted us. Both leaders who defected aren’t even contesting this time, and people keep asking why they went to the LDF. Many believe they defected for financial benefits and the greed for power,” Biju said.

Without its key faces and moral footing, the once-cohesive collective quickly fell apart. 

Joseph, however, denied the allegations of financial benefits and described the movement lost direction. “We were a union of residents fighting sea erosion. None of us had political experience,” he said.

The outfit initially was born from a WhatsApp community when people had to move to relief camps due to sea erosion amid COVID-19 pandemic. They started voicing out the plight of the residents packed in relief camps amid the norms of social distancing of quarantine. 

“But after the elections and the COVID, people went back to their jobs. Unlike other political parties we did not have a proper system to coordinate the activities. Thus unity broke, and our relevance declined. Eventually, internal issues grew, and I had to leave,” Joseph said. 

Now, Joseph openly campaigns for the LDF. However, both he and Simla were not given seats by the LDF, which made them defect from 2020 Chellanam.  

As the outfit splintered, it merged with the Kitex-backed Kizhakkambalam Twenty20, hoping to field candidates in all wards in 2025 local body polls. After delimitation, the panchayat now has 22 wards and the issues like coastal erosion, which once led to the rise of 2020 Chellanam persists too. However, it did not work out as planned. 

“2020 Chellanam is now part of Twenty20. But we could not find suitable candidates to contest this time,” Biju admitted, adding that they plan to contest in all seats in the next polls.

Today, as Chellanam continues to battle sea erosion despite new tetrapod installations, the political collective that emerged from those very struggles has disappeared. The people’s movement that once shook a panchayat has been swept away, much like the coast it fought to protect.