Why The BJP Is More Confident This Time In Kerala Elections

In Kerala every election so far had been just a ritual for the BJP. Even during the Modi-wave which swept across the nation in 2014 its vote share in Kerala touched a mere 10 percent - its historical best till date. In Vajpayee’s time in 1998 and in 2011 assembly elections it had earned just six percent votes. Every time the attempt was for a mere account opening.

But this time when the Kerala votes on 16 May it is altogether a different BJP whose aim is much beyond opening an account. It is a resurgent BJP under the leadership of a new president Kummanam Rajasekharan from the Parivar fold who is very popular among the masses for the leading role he played in the successful Aranmula agitation. He was also famous for his successful Nilakkal movement in Sabarimala decades back.

BJPs confidence stems from the fact that this time it is not fighting a lone battle. It is now allied with SNDP’s BDJS and Kerala Adivasi Maha Sabha’s JRS. With NDA looking like a viable third alternative in Kerala it has already turned a minimum of 30 to 40 constituencies into a serious 3 cornered battle with a clear winning chance in 5 to 8 seats which has already set the political mercury soaring unusually high this time in Kerala.

Even though Kerala boasts of having the highest literacy rate in the country as well a secular society, when it comes to electoral politics it is one of the most communally polarized states in India. A recent survey conducted by one of the most prominent Malayalam news channel, Asianet News revealed that almost 70 percent of Christians vote for Congress led United Democratic Front(UDF).

The Muslims votes will be almost vertically split between CPI(M) led Left Democratic Front(LDF) and UDF with nothing left for the BJP. Even there are two religion based parties in Kerala polity which are the second and third biggest parties in Kerala’s current ruling dispensation UDF. One is a ‘literally-all-Muslim-party’ called Indian Union Muslim League(IUML) with 20 MLAs and the other one is a ‘broadly-all-Christian-party’ called Kerala Congress with nine MLAs.

The other side of this story is that the majority community, Hindus who are still a 55 percent of the total population is electorally too scattered to be a vote bank. Even though, the backward communities among Hindus who constitute a little more than 35 percentage of the total population of the state including Ezhavas, SC/STs are traditionally believed to be the back-bone of the LDF. This is where BJP’s new social engineering going to be a game changer this time in Kerala politics.

The last year December witnessed the birth of a new political party in political horizon of Kerala. The new party BDJS (Bharath Dharma Jana Sena) was announced in much fanfare in a huge public rally held in the capital city Trivandrum followed by a successful month-long Kerala yatra. The biggest caste outfit of Kerala, SNDP (Sree Narayana Dharama Paripalanasabha) which represents Ezhava community is at the helm of affairs in this new party with all other Hindu organizations forming a part of it.

It was the first step of a deliberate attempt by BJP think-tanks in creating a pro-BJP Hindu vote-bank which they knew is their only bet to penetrate into the two polar electoral politics of Kerala. This so called social engineering of BJP crossed another mile-stone when it successfully persuaded the only tribal organization of Kerala, Aadivasi Maha Sabha to float its own political party and join the NDA in the upcoming state assembly elections. The firebrand tribal leader CK Janu, whose name is synonymous with the tribal politics for her struggle during Muthanga agitations, is the leader of this tribal party.

With a prominent Dalit organization KPMS(Kerala Pulaya Maha Sabh) and the only tribal party of the state JRS (Janathipathya Rashtreeya Sabha) joining the NDA, it has successfully neutralized one of the major accusation against it that the BJP is anti-Dalit and anti-Tribal.

Even though the new NDA was not formally announced during the last local body elections in the state, the tacit understanding was there between SNDP and BJP and the result was an indication of what is expected by them in the upcoming assembly polls.

The party doubled the total number of seats in the last year’s local body polls as compared to its performance in 2010 polls. It won about 1,100 of the 21,871 seats across the three-tier local body structure in the state. The party’s vote share touched 14 percent. During the civic body elections, the BJP had captured the Palakkad municipality and did extremely well in the Thiruvananthapuram and Kasargod civic bodies. The BJP had 79 seats in the municipalities in 2010 - and the tally has now gone up to 236. In 2010, the party had 450 seats in village panchayats - and the figure has now increased to 933. Moreover, the saffron party now controls 21 divisions in block panchayats and three in district panchayats.

The much ridiculed alliance between Congress and Left in Bengal is also hurting both LDF and UDF in Kerala as BJP is rightly highlighting this double standard in all possible platforms during their campaigns. All central BJP heavy weights including the PM Narendra Modi addressing multiple rallies are clear indications of how seriously BJP has taken this time’s Kerala elections.