Accordingly, any rise in the fortunes of the BJP in the state had the potential to severely weaken the UDF as the BJP, like in the rest of the country, had a natural attraction to the upper-caste Hindu support base of the Congress. This was illustrated in the 2004 Lok Sabha election where the NDA (consisting of the BJP and a rebel faction of Mr Mani’s Kerala Congress) won a hitherto unprecedented 12.4 percent of the votes and one seat, consigning the UDF to finish to an abysmal 38.4 percent of the votes— its lowest ever vote share in a Kerala election till date— and one seat.

The result of 2004 showed the inherent vulnerability of the UDF against a rise in BJP fortunes in Kerala. However, the NDA’s national loss in 2004 and the subsequent drift of the BJP, nationally and in Kerala, meant that the BJP never built upon the gains of 2004. This permitted the UDF to re-emerge as the sole anti-Marxist pole in Kerala politics, winning 16 Lok Sabha seats in 2009 and a narrow majority in the 2011 Assembly polls. The massive defeat in 2006 was caused mainly on account of a substantial pro-LDF swing due to severe anti incumbency against the UDF.

However, two factors emerged post the 2011 assembly polls in Kerala, combining with certain trends in Congress politics in Kerala under Sonia Gandhi— once again, exposing the vulnerabilities inherent in the UDF.

The first was what was considered to be the minority appeasement policies of the UDF, under the Oomen Chandy government, with the government accused of favouring the Muslim League as well as Christian churches. This, combined with the national leadership of the Congress supporting the A.K. Antony/Oomen Chandy faction in the state Congress— as opposed to the faction under the erstwhile leadership of K. Karunakaran (which comprised of a significant number of Hindu upper-caste leaders including the current opposition leader Mr Ramesh Chennithala)— led to the emergence of the perception that the Congress and the UDF had turned “anti Hindu.”

This perception became more dangerous for the Congress with the renewed emergence of the BJP, under the leadership of Narendra Modi, which appealed to the middle classes as well as Hindus upset over the “appeasement” policies of the UDF. This was reflected in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls where the NDA polled 11 percent of the vote and the BJP nearly won its first Lok Sabha seat from Kerala in Thiruvananthapuram. Significantly, as opposed to 2004, the national leadership of the BJP recognised the potential for growth in Kerala and invested a significant amount of time and energy in strengthening the party and broadening its social base in Kerala.

Secondly, a key part of this strategy was to establish an alliance with Vellapally Natesan, the General Secretary of the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDPY). The SNDPY is an organisation of the Ezhava community. The Ezhavas, the largest social group in Kerala, are traditional supporters of the LDF and provide the backbone of the Marxist cadre in the state. However, Mr Natesan had been chafing against the alleged anti-Hindu policies of the LDF and the UDF for some time and was looking to formally enter the political scene himself.

The BJP entered into informal tie-ups with independents, backed by Mr Natesan, for the 2015 local body polls which paid off with the alliance— obtaining an estimated vote share for 15 percent. The BJP won control of the Palakkad municipality for the first time and emerged as the opposition in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation. The UDF suffered reverses across the state.

Rohit G Jayaraman

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