From margins to muscle, BJP’s Kerala push intensifies

“How many seats is the BJP in serious contention?” K Surendran, the company’s former say chief and its prospect from Manjeshwaram, bristles at the call into question. “We ar in the reckoning in all 140 seats, we are contesting to form the government,” he adds. Surendran’s pointed response suggests the emerging mindset in a party that no longer thinks of itself as a side show in a state where the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front or the Congress-led United Democratic Front have always held office. Instead, in 2026, it is looking to assert its presence, expand its base, influence the results, and win power soon.VV Rajesh, the first BJP mayor of Thiruvananthapuram, looks at the question differently. He says there are about 30 to 40 assembly constituencies where party candidates have clocked above 35,000 votes at some point. He points out that another 10,000 plus votes in any of these constituencies could turn the verdict in favour of the BJP in a triangular contest. There are close to a dozen seats in Kerala where the BJP might be in serious contention. The party might not win any of these, or surprise the most seasoned political weathervane and win up to half a dozen of them. But the fact is the BJP in Kerala is now in a position to influence the outcome in many seats, across geographical regions.Since its inception in 1980, the BJP has got just one MLA (2016) and one MP (2024) from Kerala. Its vote share stood at 6.03% in 2011, 10.53% in 2016, and 11.3% in 2021. In general elections, the party polled 10.3% votes in 2014, 12.9% in 2019, and 16.7% in 2024. The gap between the assembly polls and general elections is in step with Kerala’s voting preferences: National parties do better in the Lok Sabha elections than in assembly polls, as is evident from the Congress winning 19 out of 20 seats in 2019 and 18 out of 20 in 2024 even when the LDF was ruling the state.So, why is there a buzz about the BJP in this election? Recent local bodies saw the BJP win the Thiruvananthapuram municipal corporation, the municipalities of Palakkad and Trippunithura, and multiple panchayats. The party has attracted former legislators and leaders from the Left – three are on the party’s candidate list this time. Large crowds turn up for the party’s high-voltage campaigns, including roadshows featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Some candidates – party chief Rajeev Chandrasekhar (Nemom), former Union minister V Muraleedharan (Kazhakkottam), Shobha Surendran (Palakkad), K Surendran (Manjeshwaram), Gopakumar (Chathannur), the late Congress leader K Karunakaran’s daughter Padmaja Venugopal (Thrissur) – are hoping to cause upsets in a triangular contest. Constituencies such as Thiruvalla (Anoop Antony), Pala (Shone George), Vattiyurkkavu (Kerala’s first woman DGP Sreelekha), and Aranmula (former governor Kummanam Rajasekharan) might also brace for an unpredictable contest.K Surendran, for instance, lost Manjeshwaram by 74 votes in 2016 and 745 votes in 2021. Shobha Surendran, the party’s most energetic campaigner, has been successful in raising votes wherever she contested in the past. “Politics is a storm, and see what we did in Tripura, where our vote share rose from 2% to vault us to power,” she said.What explains this rising attraction for the BJP?One, since its rise to power at the Centre in 2014, the party has started to influence voting behaviour in Kerala. Until 2014, the BJP had little to offer the Kerala voter in terms of patronage, which the LDF and UDF could on account of their presence in institutions of governance. Power in Delhi has enabled the BJP to break this duopoly and offer patronage in its own ways. The party has the resources to turn election campaigns into impressive spectacles, which make an impression on voters.Two, the BJP’s transformation into a party of governance at the Centre and its vigorous assertion that it represented Hindu interests has found a resonance in Kerala as well. Hindus consist of 54% of Kerala. They are fragmented along caste and party lines, and spread across the LDF and the UDF, though the CPI(M) traditionally gets the bulk of Hindu votes. The BJP is changing this pattern and has been slowly building a pan-caste, pan-regional Hindu vote.“The inhibition against the BJP among Left and Congress leaders and voters has disappeared,” said J Prabhash, former professor of political science at Kerala University. MA Baby, CPI(M) general secretary, said that the rise of the BJP in Kerala was the result of the middle class’s preference to stay close to power. “The process began as early as in the 1990s when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was elected to power and the current uninterrupted sequence of the BJP’s term in office has helped the party attract new followers,” he added.Three, the pace of the BJP’s social engineering project may be slow, but it has helped the party expand beyond its conventional Hindu base. “In Kottayam, the BJP has successfully reached out to the Ezhava community, the mainstay of the Left, by roping in BDJS (Bharat Dharma Jana Sena), backed by the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam. The BJP also wooed representatives from OBC groups marginalised in the UDF-LDF powerplay,” said noted writer S Harish. More importantly, the party has embarked on outreach to Christian denominations, which are influential in south and central Kerala. The party has curiously given 20 seats to the corporate party, Twenty20, founded by Sabu George, which had attracted middle-class voters in constituencies such as Kunnathunadu. The party has invested in young leaders from the Christian community – Anoop Antony, for instance – as a long-term investment to crack central Kerala seats. However, John Samuel, who heads the public policy wing of the Congress in Kerala, said that the BJP’s bid will be unsuccessful. The protests over a new FCRA bill points to a restive Christian leadership.A look at the BJP’s three main strongholds provide interesting insights. Manjeshwaram in Kasargode district, adjoining Mangaluru in Karnataka, is a melting pot of languages and cultures, according to writer and filmmaker MA Rahman. Incumbent lawmaker AKM Ashraf of the Muslim League is fluent in Malayalam, Kannada, and Tulu, and is confident of a third successful term. “The BJP vote has saturated and its polarisation can’t work here anymore,” he said. The BJP has alleged that the UDF and the LDF make deals to deny the party a win here. Palakkad to the southeast shares a border with Tamil Nadu. Once a red bastion (it has elected communist stalwarts such as AK Gopalan and EK Nayanar to the Lok Sabha in the past), the city turned to the BJP in the recent local bodies poll. Down south, Thiruvananthapuram is where the BJP has the organisational muscle, and made its mark first by winning close to 100,000 votes in the 1984 general election. The elections were preceded by a Hindu-Muslim riot in the city’s main market in 1982.Rajesh, the Thiruvananthapuram mayor, said the BJP’s rise coincided with the rise of a new Hindu religiosity in the 1990s. “We associated with numerous religious spiritual groups and built a favourable climate in favour of the party,” said Rajesh. The transformation of the party is most evident in the seven-storied headquarters (Marar Bhavan) that replaced the small bungalow that housed the party leaders until last year.The temple has been the site of socialisation for the BJP. The last few decades have seen a sharp rise in religiosity, renovation of temples, and revival of rituals. The annual festival at the Attukal Devi temple in Thiruvananthapuram sees a major mobilisation of women. The Sabarimala protests saw a reassertion of Hindu conservatism with women leading the front. More recently, a Kumbh Mela was organised at Thirunavaya, in Malappuram. Prabhash argued that the BJP’s spread has been through middle class women, for many of whom temples are the only public space they visit. Temple festivals, bhajan evenings, lectures, rituals, and pilgrimages have been entry points for the party to recruit potential supporters, according to Prabhash.The BJP’s Hindu assertion may have resulted in anti-Left mobilisations, which tend to benefit the UDF. The party’s backing for films such as Kerala Story, which critics have described as Islamophobic, and campaigns around food and diet (beef, for instance) may also work against the party. If this turns out to be a close election, the BJP will hope to emerge with a handful of seats and become the arbitrator in a hung assembly. The fact is, Kerala’s bipolar polity is under strain. But it is anybody’s guess if 2026 turns out to be a breakthrough election for the BJP.