Thiruvananthapuram, In Kerala, be it a tragedy or a happy occasion, everything boils down to politics and is directly linked to the ballot.

The only thing that's the talk of the town today is the way how Kerala has managed coronavirus, which incidentally began from Thrissur on January 30, when the first case was reported in the country.

After 100 days, it has turned into a pandemic, taking the lives of over a lakh and leaving more than 1.7 million people infected across the globe.

Looking at how things have progressed in the state, the world now looks towards Kerala as to how it has managed things and it's time for accolades being showered on Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who is leading from the front after he took over from Health Minister K.K. Shailaja and his stock seems to have improved like never before.

The talk of the town is, with powerful nations reeling under the impact of coronavirus, Vijayan and his team have done a remarkable job and they are losing no opportunity to cash in as well.

The indicator for the first round of Vijayan's popularity can be gauged from a peep into the social media and it's there one finds that the opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front and its leaders are being heavily trolled.

One of those whose public utterances have come under ridicule is the Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala, whose attempt to portray Vijayan and his team in poor light has come under sharp attack.

Political pundits are now speculating - will Vijayan, seeing his leadership graph soaring like never before in his nearly five decades in public life, be able to cash in on this euphoria.

Incidentally, the local bodies polls are scheduled to be held in October this year and the assembly polls before 2021 May.

But as per past records, the CPI-M ended up on the losing side, after deciding to hold the assembly polls in 1991, before its term ended, hoping to cash in on the stellar victory in the district council polls, held the same year, when it won 13 out of the 14 councils.

So the question is - will Vijayan take a calculated political risk to test the political waters, when his flag is flying high and the opposition is nowhere in the picture?