India's Youngest Municipal Chairperson Diya Binu Ousted In Kerala As Congress Rebels Back LDF

Diya Binu Pulickakandam, who became India's youngest municipal chairperson at 21, was voted out of office on Tuesday after the Opposition LDF moved a no confidence motion that succeeded only because four Congress councillors defied their own party's whip. All 17 councillors present in the 26 member Pala municipality council backed the motion unanimously, comprising the 12 LDF members, the four Congress rebels and independent vice chairperson Maya Rahul, with no votes cast against it.

The Congress had directed its councillors to boycott the meeting altogether, hoping the absence would deny the LDF the numbers needed to topple the UDF administration, which held a narrow one seat majority. The rebels ignored the directive anyway, making the outcome all but inevitable once Maya Rahul, who had earlier supported the UDF arrangement, also crossed over.

Diya had assumed office in December after her family engineered a remarkable outcome in Pala, ending nearly four decades of dominance by Kerala Congress (M), the party founded by the late K M Mani. Diya, her father Binu Pulickakandam and uncle Biju Pulickakandam all won as independents, and their decision to back the UDF gave the alliance control of a municipality it had never held outright. For Binu, a councillor of 20 years who had briefly held the CPI(M) ticket in 2020 before Mani's son Jose K Mani blocked his chairperson bid, and who was again passed over for the post in 2023 under KC(M) pressure, the win carried the weight of a long personal score being settled.

That arrangement collapsed just as fast as it formed. Relations soured over allegations that the independent bloc had grown closer to the Left, with the flashpoint being the municipality's approval for the DYFI to hold its district conference at Kottaramattom despite a Congress resolution opposing it. Congress leaders accused the independents of deliberately skipping the relevant council meeting to let the proposal pass, an allegation Binu rejected, calling it a routine administrative approval unrelated to political affiliation.

Despite last minute intervention by the KPCC and district leadership to bring the dissident councillors back in line, talks collapsed, and disciplinary action has now been signalled against those who defied the whip. The fall marks the culmination of weeks of infighting within the UDF and hands the LDF a municipality it had been eyeing since the rift first surfaced.