MR Lalu
There are sleepless nights ahead for the Left parties led by the CPI (M) in Kerala. With the Assembly elections almost five months away, their shrinking prospects in the local body elections is a warning signal to the Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF (Left Democratic Front) government. At the same time, both the NDA, led by the BJP, and the UDF (United Democratic Front), led by the Congress, won eye-wateringly.
The NDA’s sweep in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, which had remained a bastion of the Left parties for many decades, signaled a significant change, that the capital city of Kerala marched with the development agenda set by the Modi government. On the ground, the state witnessed the organizational acumen of Rajiv Chandrashekhar, the state president of the BJP, who played his dice strategically. The party has made significant inroads in all parts of the state, while managing to grab power in the capital city.
The BJP made its presence strongly felt in all six corporations and grabbed power in 26 gram panchayats. The myth that the BJP is a political untouchable was thoroughly busted. For long, it has been obligatory for political pundits across the media to run down on the party, projecting it as an underdog. Mostly, they felt that intellectually sensible Keralites would not accommodate a North Indian party that, as per the narratives projected, battled for gauraksha and mandirs.
The UDF, for that matter, had a moment of revenge, certainly a comeback in the local body elections, and a great giggle of contentment, as the state elections are in the offing. Two consecutive terms under Pinarayi Vijayan had outrightly dismissed the return of the Congress to power, and the mood was one of familiar negation, a complete writing-off of the Congress and its cohorts for being internally adrift.
The state elections, the Congress leadership now views, will be a clean sweep for the UDF. Pundits would say this is insanity on the part of the Congress. But debates are stunningly aggressive and unsurprisingly flipping pages of predictions of a complete rout of the Left parties in the state elections. Nationally, on a mission to unseat the Modi government, both the Left and the Congress combine firmly hold the I.N.D.I. Alliance. But in Kerala the electorate witnesses their tongue-lashing often in the name of doctrinal conflicts. The BJP began to sense some breathing space with the election results, holding its position on a respectable pedestal. Its journey from the 1990s to this day has been tumultuous, and the state remained an impenetrable riddle for the party for long.
Now, for both the warring coalitions in Kerala, the UDF and the LDF, the rattling subject remains the same. Why is the Kerala electorate leaning towards the saffron camp? Slow but steady has been its progress. This journey goes back to the days of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh. A section of the population in the state has remained rooted in the Hindutva ideology of the RSS and, by extension, the BJP. Though meager, this support has been consistent.
Kerala’s complex caste equations and the formidable presence of Christian and Muslim communities have long prevented the party from gaining significant momentum. This, indeed, earned the state an atypical reputation for being politically educated and sensible, as it successfully kept the BJP at arm’s length. Even the electoral tsunami that brought Modi to the national political stage failed to reach the shores of this tiny coastal state.
His advent for the second and third terms also barely impacted the BJP’s prospects in the God’s Own Country. An exception was actor Suresh Gopi, who won the parliamentary election from the Thrissur constituency. His victory was undeniably seen as a personal one, and many believed that there was no such thing as a saffron penetration in the state.
With minorities constituting 45 per cent of Kerala’s population, the BJP’s significant minority representation, especially among Christians, in local body elections came as a shattering surprise to its opponents. For decades, when it remained a political pariah, the party experimented with different leaders at the helm of its state unit. However, nothing remarkable materialized.
The Assembly elections of 1991 offered the first real glimpse of the BJP’s presence in the state. That year, the party narrowly lost the Manjeswaram constituency, missing victory by a whisker. The party’s tallest leader, K. G. Marar, known for his strong ideological standing, was an RSS veteran and among those imprisoned during Indira Gandhi’s National Emergency. Unsurprisingly, after Marar’s narrow defeat, the saffron camp realized it had a long road ahead to gain acceptance and approval in a state long dominated by the Communist and Congress camps.
Marar was among the top workers deputed by the RSS to the BJP in the state. The Sangh continued to lend its organizational expertise to the BJP by assigning its senior pracharaks to the party. Kummanam Rajasekharan, the Nilakkal stalwart and a senior RSS pracharak who led the Nilakkal agitation in 1982, was also destined to lead the BJP, once again as an experiment.
The Nilakkal agitation, which ultimately propelled him to prominence, was a protest against the local Christian lobby that allegedly threatened the sanctity of the Sabarimala temple. The agitation was among the earliest major movements that compelled Hindus across the state to unite for a common cause. However, nothing, not even his deputation as BJP state president or personal reputation was able to materially translate into electoral gains for the party.
At present, several contributing factors appear to support the BJP’s rise in the forthcoming state elections. Whereas, the party’s national leadership does not seem to be in a hurry to seize power. Unlike in other states, the national leadership believes that Kerala follows a different political tempo. It is difficult to predict the scale and depth of the BJP’s electoral prospects in the near future. Nevertheless, the party is reportedly on a grand mission to secure a double-digit tally in the state Assembly in 2026.
Its impressive performance in the state capital has been particularly encouraging, with the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation serving as a key launch-pad. Party cadres believe that Prime Minister Modi will bolster the party’s resources to adequately meet the developmental demands of the temple city well before the Assembly elections approach.
(Author is freelance journalist and social worker based in Kerala. Views are personal .)
