Nemom, Manjeshwar, Palakkad, Kunnathunad, Pala, Kottarakkara, Peravoor and Thripunithura- Onmanorama tracks the battle in 12 closely fought constituencies where stakes are high and margins razor-thin. Our team will capture the ground-level pulse and update the poll-meter.

At a time when individual resentments have refused to yield to the collective will of political parties in ways never before seen in Kerala, Kottarakkara is witnessing perhaps the weirdest of triangular fights.

P Aisha Potti, who as the CPM candidate in 2006 trounced the invincible R Balakrishna Pillai and then in the subsequent two elections recast Kottarakkara as a CPM fortress and flung Pillai into political oblivion, is now the Congress candidate. And R Resmi, who as Congress candidate in 2021 threatened to mess up K N Balagopal's return to Kerala politics, is now the BJP candidate.

Yet, in this initial stretch of a brief campaign period, Finance Minister K N Balagopal is in the lead.

Omnipresent minister
More than his record as finance minister, it is the time he gave to the constituency that seems to matter.

"He was always present. He would be in the constituency seven to ten days a month, which gave the impression that he was always there," said Somarajan Nair, a retired KSRTC driver and a former Kerala Congress (B) member.

The Kottarakkara slant in Balagopal's budget speeches, too, will not go unnoticed. In 2024, he established the second residential campus of the Indian multinational Zoho Corporation, at Kottarakkara.

In his 2022 speech, Balagopal reminded Kerala of Kottarakkara's cultural significance as the place where Kathakali originated. He proposed a Kathakali learning centre in the name of Kottarakkara Thampuran, the creator of Kathakali, in Kottarakkara.

The unfamiliarity the voters had felt in 2021, therefore, has vanished. That year, Balagopal had defeated Resmi of the Congress by a margin of 10,814 votes.

Aisha: Familiar to unfamiliar
To understand how fragile Balagopal's win was, take a look at Potti's lead in 2016. It was 42,632. Her lead was increasing in geometric progression.

In 2006, when Balakrishna Pillai was ousted, it was 12,087. This win came even before the redrawing of the constituency's boundary in favour of the LDF.

In 2011, Pillai was in jail in the Idamalayar case, and it was his right-hand man, Dr N M Murali, who contested in the KC(B) ticket. He lost by 20,592 votes. And in 2016, when the Congress took over the seat, its candidate Savin Sathyan was left behind by 42,632 votes.

Potti was so popular that when she was denied ticket in 2021, citing the two-term rule, even CPM cadres felt slighted. The CPM vote share dwindled to 46 per cent. Potti's vote share was always in the 54-55 per cent range.

It is this seemingly universal appeal of Potti that the UDF is banking on. However, the perception that she is an "opportunist", which is craftily spread by the CPM cadres at family gatherings and through social media, seems to have dulled her former aura.

Now that she has been out of power for five years, at least for the new voters in Kottarakkara she is the 'unfamiliar' figure.

Pillai's undoing
"Balagopal sir is a nice man, he has no airs like Balakrishna Pillai. And we feel Aisha chechi should not have done this. She was given tickets thrice. What more can she ask for," said Sheebakumari, a Kudumbashree worker in Kottarakkara's Pulamon.

It was Pillai's arrogant feudal ways, and his open disregard for people considered lower caste, particularly his dislike for Congress leader Kodukkunnil Suresh, that is widely seen as the reason for his downfall.

"Balagopalanu, vishwasikkaam" (It's Balagopal. You can trust him) is Balagopal's campaign slogan this time. This slogan, even while lighting up the minister's perceived reliability, is also an artful attack on Potti, a discreet allusion to her recent desertion of the CPM.

Potti's enduring legacy
Even then, Potti is highly regarded for the development that she had brought to Kottarakkara. People Onmanorama talked to mentioned a number of projects: the KSRTC shopping mall, fire station, Parakakdavu bridge.

"Pillai sir did not bring any development. He was this towering figure who mainly played the patronage game. He had managed to secure jobs for many here in KSRTC when he was transport minister," Somarajan, the former KC(B) man said. Balakrishna Pillai was Kottarakkara MLA for seven consecutive terms, from 1977 to 2006, irrespective of whether he was in the LDF or the UDF.

"Aisha Potti earnestly worked for Kottarakkara's development, and she was very accessible. But I don't think her defection to the Congress will do her any good," Somarajan said.

Poacher's game
Former Mahila Congress leader Resmi's decision to take refuge in the BJP just because the Congress denied her a ticket could, like in the case of Potti, work against her.

"I think Resmi has misread her close fight with Balagopal in 2021. The voters then, including the CPM supporters, were bitter that Aisha Potti was sidelined. Resmi was the beneficiary of this disapproval," said Santhosh, a senior journalist in the area.

"Of course, Resmi is a prominent face and was a member of Kulakkada Panchayat and later of the Kollam district panchayat. But since the BJP is not a major force in Kottarakkara, her vengeful shift to the BJP will do neither her nor the BJP any good," Santhosh said.

However, poaching is a tried and tested BJP strategy. Across the country, the party has fielded popular names plucked from other parties in constituencies where it has no significant presence. The BJP vote share in Kottarakkara has not seen any decisive surge. It is still below 15 per cent. At the most, Resmi can lift the vote share to about 17 per cent is the general consensus.

It's advantage Balagopal
At the moment, the fight seems to be between Balagopal and Aisha Potti, and the minister seems to have a clear lead.

Last time, if Balagopal was able to surmount the Aisha factor, it was only because of the strong grassroots LDF presence, which was ironically strengthened after Potti's arrival in 2006. This time, after Balagopal has enhanced his standing in the constituency, the LDF's grassroots network looks even stronger.

In the 2025 local body polls, the LDF won the Kottarakkara Municipality and four (Kareepra, Kulakkada, Mylom and Veliyam) of the seven panchayats that make up the Assembly with a higher number of seats, improved its tally in Ezhukone and Neduvathur, and tied with the UDF in Ummannur.

For these reasons, Balagopal sits pretty in the first lap.