Pinarayi Vijayan

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, 80, is seeking re-election from the Dharmadom Assembly constituency, returning to a seat that includes his native village of 'Pinarayi' after which he is named.

This will be Vijayan’s seventh Assembly contest overall and his third from Dharmadom. Earlier in his career, he won three times from Kuthuparamba and once from Payyannur, underscoring his long-standing electoral presence in north Kerala.

In the fray against him are VP Abdul Rasheed of the Congress-led UDF and K Ranjith of the BJP, setting up a familiar three-cornered contest in the constituency.

Vijayan remains one of the most influential leaders of the CPI(M), having reshaped Kerala’s political narrative in 2021 by leading the Left Democratic Front (LDF) to consecutive victories, breaking the state’s decades-long pattern of alternating between the LDF and the UDF.

As he seeks another mandate from Dharmadom, Vijayan is not only aiming to retain his personal stronghold but also to steer the CPI(M)-led alliance to power once again. He is currently the only Chief Minister from the party in the country and is widely seen as its central figure.

Dharmadom, carved out in 2010, has consistently backed the CPI(M). The seat was first won by KK Narayanan in 2011, before Vijayan secured victories in both 2016 and 2021. In the last Assembly election, he defeated Congress candidate C Raghunathan by over 50,000 votes, polling 59.61 per cent of the vote share.

Candidate Info: Pinarayi Vijayan is the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM) candidate contesting from Dharmadam (General) Assembly constituency for the 2026 Kerala Assembly elections. This male candidate is 82 years of age, according to the election affidavit submitted to the Election Commission of India.