About 500 people were killed and 8 lakh were displaced. The United Nations pegged the cost of rehabilitation and reconstruction at Rs 31,000 crore. The 2018 Kerala Economic Review report estimated that crop loss alone was worth Rs. 3,500 crore. 

This was in August, 2018, when Kerala was hit by devastating floods. Barely seven months and a few days later, all 20 of Kerala’s Lok Sabha seats are going to the polls. But the ‘century’s worst flood’ barely resonates in political narratives.