From trailblazer to trouble spot: Arya Rajendran and the collapse of Left's capital citadel

Thiruvananthapuram Dec 13 Five years ago, Arya Rajendran was celebrated as a symbol of generational change. At 21, she became the youngest mayor in the country, a poster figure for the CPI(M)’s claim that a new, responsive Left leadership had arrived in Kerala's capital.

In 2025, as the Left Democratic Front lost control of the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation for the first time in nearly five decades, that narrative has unraveled dramatically.

In a rare and telling moment of public dissent, sharp criticism of Rajendran’s tenure has come from within the party itself.

Gayathri Babu, a young CPI-M leader and outgoing councilor, launched a scathing Facebook critique in the wake of the defeat, accusing the leadership of arrogance, detachment from the grassroots, and a steady erosion of the Left’s traditional public connect in the capital.

The intervention is politically significant.

Gayathri Babu did not contest this election, but her father—fielded from her ward—won his seat and was widely projected as a potential mayoral candidate had the CPI-M retained the Corporation.

That a leader so closely linked to the party’s internal power structure chose to publicly question the outgoing mayor has amplified the sense of introspection gripping the Left.

Without naming Arya Rajendran, Gayathri’s post pointed to failures in accessibility, teamwork and sensitivity towards ordinary citizens and local leaders.

Many within the party acknowledge that public resentment had been building, particularly after a series of controversies that damaged the mayor’s image.

Foremost among them was the widely criticised incident in which Rajendran and her husband, MLA Sachin Dev, were accused of waylaying a state-run KSRTC bus -- an episode that came to symbolise political immaturity and abuse of authority in the public mind.

Allegations of administrative high-handedness and the absence of visible civic achievements further weakened her standing.

Notably, Rajendran stayed away from active campaigning during the polls, a move widely interpreted as an attempt by the party to contain voter backlash.

It did not work.

The BJP’s breakthrough victory in the capital sealed the Left’s worst civic setback in decades.

For the CPI(M), the fall of its youngest mayor has become more than an individual story.

It is a cautionary tale of how power, when divorced from humility and public engagement, can turn a celebrated symbol of change into an emblem of political decline—at a moment when Kerala’s urban politics is undergoing a profound realignment.

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