Kerala Assembly Election 2026 Insights : Overview Tab

Why an app?

Politics isn't something I follow obsessively, but it's never been far from my attention. Elections, debates, the drama of it all, I find it genuinely compelling. I lean left, and that shapes how I read things, though I'm more interested in understanding what's happening than in scoring points for any side.

While following the current election coverage, I noticed something missing. There was no single place that pulled everything together in a clear, accessible way. What I wanted was simple: look up a constituency, see who's contested it over the years, how past results played out, whether it's a reliable stronghold for a particular front, or whether the last win was a quiet hold or a proper upset for the sitting MLA.

All of this information exists, mostly on Wikipedia and across different sources. But it is not easy to navigate. I often had to jump between multiple pages just to properly understand one constituency. So I decided to build something for myself. A simple one stop place where I could look up everything quickly without digging through dozens of links.

Personally, I tend to build small tools like this whenever I have a specific need. Since I started doing more vibe coding, this has become my default approach. If I cannot find an app that fits my exact requirement, I just build one.

Initial working app

Since my requirement was simple, I started with a single page app that brings everything together in one place.

It initially had these functions:

01
Overview Page
02
Constituency page with previous (2021, 2016) election results
03
Analysis tab with some interesting facts I wanted to explore

Overview Page

This page mainly focuses on giving a quick snapshot of the election landscape.

At the top, there is an arc dot chart that shows:

total seats in the past election
seats won by each front
party-wise seat distribution

The bottom segment has a table showing all 140 constituencies in the assembly election. It includes:

Constituency name
Winner for the selected year
Winner party
Winner front
Margin of votes

It is a fairly simple table. An important feature I later added is that clicking on a constituency drills through to the constituency tab, where it shows more detailed values.

The table with 140 constituency details. You can click on one and it will move to another tab with that constituency already selected in the filter

Contituencies Page

This page includes filters that make it easy to explore the data. You can filter by constituency or by candidate names from the 2016 and 2021 elections.

The page mainly shows detailed results from those elections. It includes:

winning candidate and margin of victory
runner up and the votes they received
total number of voters
total votes cast

Dashboard view with summary cards displaying winning candidate, margin of victory, runner-up votes, and overall voter statistics for a selected constituency — Summary cards showing winners, vote margins, and key election statistics

At the bottom, there is a comprehensive table that lists all candidates and the votes they received. This includes candidates from all fronts as well as independent candidates.

Detailed results table showing all candidates in the constituency, including party affiliation and total votes received for each candidate — Table listing all candidates and their vote counts

An analysis page

This page was added to explore some analytics from previous elections.

What I wanted here was:

01
See constituencies that had tight margins
02
Identify swing seats, meaning constituencies that moved to a different front, along with counts of seats gained and lost by each front

Tight margins

This section shows a list of constituencies with very small victory margins.

There is a text input that lets you adjust the vote margin cutoff. The default value is 3000, which means it shows all constituencies where the winning margin was less than 3000 votes. You can increase or decrease this value to explore more or fewer constituencies.
At the top, there are summary cards showing how many seats each front won within these tight margins. This gives a quick sense of which seats are more likely to flip in upcoming elections.

Another interesting angle I wanted to explore here is how fragmented the vote was in close contests. For example, in Perinthalmanna, Najeeb Kanthapuram won by just 38 votes. There were 8 candidates in total, and even the last candidate received 471 votes. Situations like this make it interesting to look at how vote splitting may have influenced the result.

Analysis view showing constituencies with close election margins, including a configurable vote margin filter, summary cards by political front, and a list of constituencies with narrow victory differences — Tight margin constituencies with adjustable vote cutoff and front-wise summary

Changed constituencies

This section highlights constituencies where the seat changed hands, meaning the sitting MLA or their front lost in the election. At the top, there are summary cards showing how many such seats were gained by each front. Below that, a table provides detailed information about these constituencies and the changes observed.

Analysis dashboard showing constituencies where the winning party or front changed, with summary cards of seat gains and losses and a detailed table of affected constituencies — Constituencies where seats changed hands between elections

Closing note

This is the first part of a series where I walk through the web app and how it works.

In the next part, I will cover:

predictions for the 2026 elections

Each part focuses on a specific aspect of the app and how it can be used to better understand election dynamics.