Kerala! 2024! "cRreeeeaK"
Thrisshold for the BJP?
Along expected lines, Malayalis voted in favour of the Congress-led UDF or United Democratic Front. A mammoth 18 of 20 constituencies gifted a UDF candidate a ‘ticket to ride’ to grace the peacock green seats in the new Parliament.
Beyond the obvious facts of the Left front losing and the BJP winning a Lok Sabha constituency for the first time in history, are there any further readings? Has the door opened ever so slightly for the BJP into Kerala’s long held dual-front polity? Has the first barrier(s) of resistance to the BJP been broken through? In roughly about 20-21 months from now, Kerala elects its new Legislative Assembly. How are these results expected to impact the elections then?
A few years back, all these questions had a firm answer - “no”. How about now, in a post 2014, ‘MoSha’d India’? One that is increasingly polarised along religious lines, is less tolerant to divergent views, one that sees ‘development’ in nothing beyond roads, bridges and flashy new trains, and, an emerging young generation that isn’t afraid to think different.
Fact: Very few candidates / leaders from the BJP evinced any serious level of interest among Mallu voters over the past 35-40 years.
Also a fact: Very few candidates / leaders from the BJP evince any serious level of interest among Mallu voters today, either.
Another fact: O Rajagopal and actor Suresh Gopi (MP-elect) have been able to attract voters beyond the traditional base of voters amenable towards the RSS ideology or core issues / planks of the BJP.
2024 has thrown up a few things that will make any political observer sit up and take note:
Voters in four constituencies gave the BJP in excess of 3L votes (Alappuzha fell short by just 352 votes)
In another three, the BJP secured more than 2L and at six others, they secured more than 1.4L votes, though not enough to create any challenge to either of the fronts
Trivandrum
In 2014, O Rajagopal gave a stiff fight to Dr. Shashi Tharoor on the back of two factors - one, the awe of the unknown (Modi wave that was gripping through out India), and two a twin factor by itself - the goodwill he generated while being railway minister earlier in the Vajpayee govt., and a sympathy wave in his favour due to his few failed attempts at the hustings
After the historical win of the 2016 Assembly seat at Trivandrum’s Nemom constituency, in 2019 Trivandrum gave Dr. Tharoor victory, this time with a thumping margin of just a few shy of 1L votes - clearly the BJP was not able to win as many votes O Rajagopal managed to secure
And now in 2024, Trivandrum once again gave Dr. Tharoor an even bigger scare (this after refusing to re-elect a BJP candidate from Nemom in 2021); three assembly constituencies gave the BJP handsome gains this time around - all of which are going to be contested seriously in 2026
The BJP has historically had a stronger hold on Trivandrum since decades now due to the peculiarity of its population mix. Trivandrum Lok Sabha is one which the BJP has been eying seriously for the past 10-15 years (three terms).
Thrissur
After Trivandrum this has been the focus of the BJP since 2019 when Suresh Gopi fought well. His stardom as a cine actor and as the presenter of the Malayalam version of ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ helped him gain traction among women voters, the young and a lot of other sub-segments. An atypically secular campaign during the 2024 elections, twin visits of the prime minister - one even for the actor’s daughter’s wedding - and a number of local projects across the constituency that saw his involvement, at times even using his personal funds, resulted in a much larger number of people cutting across religious and ideology lines polling more than 4L votes. One can safely be sure that a sizeable number of these are non-traditional or non-core BJP votes.
Attingal
One of the toughest three-cornered fights in 2024 took place here, a strong left bastion. Each of the three main contenders clocked more than 3L votes. The eventual winner from the UDF won by a margin of under 700 votes. Union Minister V Muraleedharan unexpectedly improved upon the BJP vote secured in 2019 and lost out by just 16K votes. It could have gone any way. 2019 having returned a significant increase in votes thanks to the candidate’s stellar performance then, and the prime minister campaigning from the constituency, the minister nicknamed ‘vimarshanakaarya mantri’ (minister for criticism affairs - hardly a day passed where he did not hold a presser to criticise the Kerala govt.) worked hard over the past five years by establishing an office. The results were there to be seen where several left strongholds forayed into.
Alappuzha
And we come to one of the most interesting places, the ‘Venice of the east’. Sobha Surendran the firebrand leader of the BJP (but not popular with any of the state leaders) has been making waves since a few years. Contesting from Palakkad in 2009, she pushed up the BJP votes by 70k (from 68k today it stands at 2.51L) . At Attingal (she contested after the prime minister intervened to get her the seat), the BJP votes (also on the back of the Sabarimala issue) soared by a whopping 1.7L votes (2024 saw a further increase of nearly 65k).
Alappuzha’s votes for the BJP increased drastically from 1.87L to 3L in 2024!
The pattern: wherever Sobha contests from, not only does she increase the BJP’s votes, but succeeding candidates manage to ride higher and improve on those figures. She manages to create a strong base for future growth.
2026
So in 2014 Trivandrum was the only seat the BJP had a realistic chance to win; nearly staged an upset.
In 2019, they added Thrissur to that list; fought well, but lost.
In 2024, they were confident on these two seats, and quietly so, on Attingal; damaged both fronts.
In 2029, they may look at being sure of four including Palakkad, and a lesser chance (which means focussed and strategic campaigns) in about half a dozen seats. Of course five years is a long time.
But this steady increase in winnable Lok Sabha seats must also be looked at in the context of 2021 where they focussed on Nemom, Trivandrum Central, Kazhakoottam, Vattiyoorkaavu, Palakkad and Thrissur seats. At various points during counting, they led in about five of these (though they won none - K Muraleedharan upset that plan by contesting from Nemom, making it a three-cornered fight). While the 2021 performance will surely give them the fillip to focus on these all over again, the 2024 performance will give BJP enough reasons to believe they can now add about 5-7 more seats where they have a realistic chance of winning. They came on top in 11 Assembly segments!
If in Thrissur and Trivandrum too, the BJP was able to gain votes from a wider base of voters, in Alappuzha, Attingal, Palakkad and Alathur, they look more like committed ideology based votes.
Generational Shift
What all these show is, the BJP has been gaining votes from the UDF and LDF vote bank substantially. With the generation of fixated voters of Kerala who would never think of voting besides either the UDF or the LDF slowing waning away and retreating, the emerging / maturing ‘new age’ voter and first time voters are largely apolitical, display a sense of ‘no ideological commitment’, one way or the other. To the young, it seems like the jazzy-sazzy blitz of affluence, the ‘IT’ culture, hunger for “development” (the word has been entrenched deep in the India psyche now) and a belief that development is all about roads, bridges, tall glass buildings among others. Half truths like “we built more airports in ten years under Modiji than in the previous 65 years put together” create a sense of ‘time and money lost, so why stick to one front all the time’. Or an even larger sense of apathy towards the political system that is corrupt (insincere) and the ‘anyway nothing’s going to change’ (an old one by the way) led impatient attitude.
One cannot deny the huge push for dramatically visible changes in hard infrastructure while travelling across the country. But what about the quality of education#, healthcare and other things? In a country that is as large and diverse as India with the kind of poverty levels that still exist, is “development” all that matters? Well, the emerging generation of voters thinks so.
There is also the reality of an increasing number of Christians who are no longer averse to the BJP. Seeds of this affinity were sown with the help of what the Union Govt thoroughly negated the existence of - ‘love jihad’ concocted by a section of the church and fuelled by the BJP. This was lapped up by a large section of Christians across denominations. A case in point - the unimaginable happened when a church decided to show the hugely graphic, inaccurate and blatantly hate-mongering stuff called ‘Kerala Stories’ to its children.
These are the some of the spaces that have opened up for the BJP to claw its way into Kerala’s polity.
The Future
Going back to the just concluded Lok Sabha polls in Kerala, it may be that elections to the parliament and the state legislative are fought on entirely different issues. But keep in mind the way the BJP has been able to crack the walls of defence of what were once rock solid left bastions in assembly segments in about 8* parliament constituencies. Add to that the sizeable numbers gained in places like Kozhikode.
In 2014 the BJP’s vote share was 10.83%.
In 2019 aided by the nation-wide Modi wave and the Sabarimala issue, its vote share increased by more than 3%.
In 2024, in the absence of both 2019 factors, the BJP’s vote share further increased by nearly 4%.
Similar trends were seen in the Assembly elections in 2016 and 2021.
At the moment, with a lot of difficulty to accept the reality, it looks like it may not be a foot hold, or even a toe hold for the BJP in Kerala, but certainly, the door to the bedroom has been opened, and its creaking noise must be loud enough for both the traditional fronts to take note of.
*Trivandrum, Attingal, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha, Thrissur, Alathur, Palakkad, Kasargod
#Quality of education: Students of an MBA program unable to make meaningful sentences and spell simple words correctly, is far better, than a question on ‘the external business environment’ answered in long paragraphs about climate change and environment protection laws!