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BJP continues its struggle to make a mark in Kerala | Opinion
The BJP, for more than a decade, has made an aggressive push to become the third pole in Kerala. Both in 2014 and 2019 general polls as well as the 2016 assembly polls, the BJP tried its best to make a mark but its vote percentage has never crossed more than 10%.
Bypolls aren’t usually an indicator of the real political mood. This is because the ruling dispensation usually has an upper hand as it controls the administrative machinery and, therefore, has an edge. For the ruling party, it is mainly a prestige issue — unless as in the case of the recent Tamil Nadu bypolls, the survival of the government depends on it, in which case that makes it much more important. So too much should not be read into bypolls results.
Witness how the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) won all the bypolls in Andhra Pradesh just before getting nearly wiped out in the May 2019 assembly elections. Having struck that cautionary note, the ruling CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) would be happy with its performance in the recently concluded bypolls in Kerala, in which it won two of the five seats which went for re-election.
Having lost 19 of the 20 Lok Sabha seats in the general elections held six months back, the LDF will be fairly happy with its performance having gone into the bypoll defending one seat and coming out of it with an extra seat to its tally.
The opposition Congress-led UDF, which won the remaining three, will be slightly disappointed that it lost one seat it held, but still upbeat with the belief that the next assembly polls it has a chance of coming back to power.
The BJP had the biggest setback as it was hoped to emerge as a third alternative in Kerala. The state has long witnessed bi-polar electoral battles with power alternating every five years between the Communists and the Congress.
The BJP, for more than a decade, has made an aggressive push to become the third pole in the state. Both in 2014 and 2019 general polls as well as the 2016 assembly polls, the BJP tried its best to make a mark but its vote percentage has never crossed more than 10%.
The Congress got more mileage from the emotive Sabarimala issue than the BJP, which initially sat on the fence — with contradictory statements from the RSS and the party — and then eventually did little to tap into the majority community’s anger on the issue.
In the latest bypoll in Konni, one of the assembly constitutencies in the Pathanmthitta parliamentary seat — under which the Sabarimala temple falls — the BJP had fielded one of its firebrand general secretaries, K Surendran. However he came third behind the CPM and Congress candidates.
Today, the Left Front controls all the six assembly constituencies in Pathanmthitta. This underscores how ineffective BJP has been in exploiting the Sabarimala issue to its electoral advantage.
In Vattiurkavu, the BJP candidate polled about only half the votes polled by the party in the 2016 assembly polls. The saving grace was Manjeswaram, which borders the BJP ruled Karnataka, where its party candidate came second.
Rampant infighting among different factions in the party, an inability to tap into a social coalition and a lack of a charismatic face has meant that the BJP continues to remain a distant third player in the state.
As a part of its post poll revamp, the party’s state unit president, PS Sreedharan Pillai, has been made the Governor of Mizoram. Earlier, Kummanam Rajasekaran was asked to resign as the Governor of Mizoram just ahead of the general elections to contest from Thiruvanthapuram against Congress heavyweight, Shashi Tharoor, a poll battle which he lost.
With just one MLA in the form of the 90-year-old O Rajagopal — representing the Nemom seat — in the 140 member state assembly, the BJP will have to rethink its strategy if it wants to make a mark in the state.
Assembly elections are 18 months away and the BJP, which is hoping to expand its footprint in southern India, will have to act quickly and decisively if it wants to become a player in Kerala.
