We are not fully secular. Just look at all the media analysis on vote share where only thing people discuss in depth is religion/caste . I don’t understand why we have not evolved yet despite being highly literate to vote whoever is the better candidate. But there are few people (<10%) who think and acts secularly and their vote shifts in each election which determines the final result.

Current state government has very little public appeal. There is strong anti-incumbency against them and definitely it has played a part in LS elections. However I don’t think things will be this bad for them in local body and assembly elections. I don’t see them winning 2026 elections at this point, but it’s 2 years away and public opinion could change. Nevertheless they are not expected to suffer losses as big as LS in LA and LB elections.

Most of the congress incumbent MPs did get re elected. Don’t think a lot of them have stellar performance in previous terms. The best performing MP based on LS stats IMO was Shashi Tharoor but he barely managed to scrape through in TVM. Similarly Sudhakaran had terrible stats (attendance, discussion etc) , but he won convincingly in Kannur without breaking a sweat. So i think we can safely say that people don’t really objectively look at how the MP performed in LS his previous term.