K.J. Jacob | Despite Dramatic Win In Its Capital, A Long Way To Go For BJP In Kerala

If everything works according to plan, then a BJP mayor will welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the tarmac when he next visits Kerala’s capital Thiruvananthapuram. That will be a paradox in that the same city, of richest god Sri Padmanabha, had witnessed the anointment of the first elected Communist head of government anywhere in the world 68 years ago. The current chief minister belongs to the red camp, while the mayor happens to be from the saffron one. The BJP cadres’ jubilation over the party’s performance in the local body elections, particularly in the state’s capital, reached 7, Lok Kalyan Marg in India’s capital and Mr Modi shared the excitement of his partymen in the southern state. The master craftsman of the BJP’s electoral gains across the country, Mr Modi called the party’s mandate in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation “a watershed moment in Kerala’s politics”. He also called his former colleague in the Union council of ministers and now state BJP president Rajeev Chandrasekhar to recall how the win in Ahmedabad’s municipal elections was a similar breakthrough for the fledgling BJP back in 1987. Mr Modi said the 50 seats it won in the 101-member corporation must be the starting point in the party’s campaign to fell Kerala’s “red fort”. The BJP had been eyeing the corporation in the last several elections. The NDA it leads won 35 seats in the 2015 and 2020 elections and was the main Opposition in the corporation council while the CPI(M)-led LDF was at the wheel, pushing the Congress-led UDF to the third position. The party will be able to get its candidate elected as mayor since the LDF, with its 29 candidates, and the UDF, with 19, is unlikely to mount an opposition with the help of two Independent candidates. (The election to one division was postponed due to the death of a candidate). Mr Modi’s congratulations and blessings will be a shot in the arm for the BJP for its campaign for the Assembly elections due in April-May 2026, but it is doubtful if that is sufficient for the saffron party to confidently aim big, if the performance in the local body elections across the state is a pointer. The BJP’s vote share in the state elections hovers around 16 per cent, which is in fact lesser than the party’s record in the Lok Sabha elections held hardly two years ago. An analysis of the voting pattern reveals that the party has been consistent in retaining its hold in the state capital but not elsewhere. It is a fact that the party was never able to match the performance of P. Kerala Varma, a Sangh Parivar candidate in the 1984 Lok Sabha elections. The party, despite its win in more seats, lags behind the LDF by about 10,000 votes even in Thiruvananthapuram; it has lost both the municipalities it had won last time. Among them is Pandalam, a place traditionally and ritualistically linked to Lord Ayyappa of Sabarimala, which was won by the LDF. The party managed to emerge as the largest bloc in Palakkad municipality, which it ruled last time with a comfortable majority. The party cadre was on cloud nine when actor-turned politician Suresh Gopi broke the jinx and he won the Thrissur Lok Sabha seat in 2024; the party believed the Thrissur victory will help it consolidate the base and win more seats. The party launched its campaign with an eye on the Thrissur corporation, but it ended up a poor third after the UDF and the LDF. The data on seats in other local bodies is also not very positive for the party and its sympathisers inside and outside Kerala. It now runs 26 of the 941 gram panchayats, two of the 86 municipalities and one of six corporations. It has drawn a blank in both block panchayats and district panchayats. In fact, it has won only one of the 344 district panchayat seats, which are larger units comparable with Assembly segments. It has doubled the number of gram panchayats under it but the disturbing trend is that it was unable to hold on to those which it had won last time. The party had banked on its new-found bonhomie with the Christian community, who comprise about 18 per cent of the state’s population. Mr Gopi’s win in Thrissur was largely attributed to the support of the prominent minority community. The party also showed signs of an accommodation of the people from the community in the state leadership; several even in the state core committee are from the community. It went out of its way to comfort the community when two Catholic nuns were recently arrested in Raipur, in BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh. But the latest election results indicate that it was indeed a short honeymoon, and the sheep have gone back to the comforts of its traditional sheds in the UDF. The community looks less adventurous now, making the BJP gameplan less formidable. The party has managed to wean away a section of the powerful Ezhava community, which forms the vote base of the Communist parties in the state. However, the election results indicate that the Communists have been able to stall any further erosion of its base. The BJP is now at a crossroads in Kerala. It has realised that hardcore Hindutva issues cannot take the party much ahead in a state which is known for its communal harmony. Its demography — the two minority communities make up about 45 per cent of the total population — virtually limits the possibility of such a policy. The party now flashes the development card with the hope that Kerala, with its open mindedness, will give it a chance.



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