Lok Sabha Polls: BJP courts Kerala with focus on 4 seats of strong presence

PM Narendra Modi holds a roadshow in Thrissur, Kerala (File pic)

After winning the North and heartland, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has set sights on South India with Kerala first in focus. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has lined up three trips to the state in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls.

What brings Kerala to the forefront of the BJP blueprint for South? The party has prioritised four Lok Sabha seats in the state, where it had performed better in the past elections with a rise in vote share, though it could never win a parliamentary seat in Kerala.

Political experts say, the BJP seems to have gained some momentum in the state with PM Modi’s recent visit followed by a roadshow and a women’s rally in Thrissur on January 3.

Thousands of women had gathered from across the state and listened to his 45-minute speech at the Nari Shakthi (Women’s Power) conference and hailed the Modi government for passing the Women’s Reservation Bill in Parliament.

The party has made a detailed plan for leaders, including union ministers, with rallies, meetings across the state with the central schemes in focus .

Thiruvananthapuram

The party plans to play the Modi magic in the parliamentary constituency of Thiruvananthapuram, which is represented by the Congress’ Shashi Tharoor, who is running for the fourth straight term after winning the seat in 2009, 2014 and in 2019.

In the last three Lok Sabha elections, the BJP has emerged as a strong opponent with its candidate PK Krishna Das getting a vote share of 11.40 percent in 2009, and then in 2014, O Rajagopal bagged 32.32 percent votes. Although there was a marginal decline in the slice of the pie in 2019 when Kummanam Rajasekharan could garner only 31.30 percent votes, the BJP emerged as a strong opponent in the region.

As per the Election Commission of India, Tharoor’s vote share of 44.29 percent in 2009 polls went down to 34.09 percent in 2014 and then again increased to 41.19 percent in 2019.

The BJP's strong show in Thiruvananthapuram is attributed to Rajagopal, who changed the political dynamics for the party by managing huge votes and making it a strong contender.

The BJP looks to field a veteran candidate in Thiruvananthapuram this time. Senior party leaders and union ministers have been frequenting Thiruvananthapuram and highlighting the Centre’s development initiatives in the state, setting the tone for the campaign for the 2024 elections.

Pathanamthitta

The Lok Sabha constituency gained attention after women came in support of a court order that overturned a partial ban on women entering Sabarimala, one of the holiest temples in the South.

The seat is ruled by the Congress with Anto Antony retaining the constituency for the last three terms. Antony’s vote shares stood at 51.21 percent in 2009 but dropped to 41.19 percent in 2014 and further down to 37.11 percent in 2019. The BJP vote share in comparison, increased from 7.06 percent to 15.95 percent to 28.97 percent in the three election years.

The BJP had fielded its state president K Surendran in 2019, who had led the Sabrimala protests.

After Thrissur, Pathanamthitta is dominated by Christians, who have a vote share of 35 percent and huge chunk of them are non-Catholics. As per data, the constituency has 58 percent Hindu voters, of which 20 percent belong to the upper class Nair community.

The BJP is reaching out to the Christians with their shift in allegiance to the Left from the Congress. In the 2021 Assembly polls, CPI (M) won all seven seats of the Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha constituency.

Thrissur

Thrissur is one of the four Lok Sabha seats, where BJP has made inroads and played against the Congress and Left in the past. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, when Narendra Modi was elected as prime minister for the second consecutive term, the BJP had fielded actor-turned-politician Suresh Gopi, who garnered 28.2 percent of the vote share.

This was a steady rise for the party from 11.15 percent votes KP Sreesan had won in 2014. But the BJP is likely to field Suresh Gopi again, who has managed to make his presence stronger in the region.

Thrissur, which has 35 percent Christian voters with the inclusion of Irinjalakuda through delimitation exercise, is regarded as a Left bastion.

In the last parliamentary polls, the Congress had won the seat after its candidate TN Prathapan defeated his nearest rival Rajaji Mathew Thomas by a margin of 93,633 votes and receiving 39.8 percent votes. Thomas, from the Communist Party of India (CPI), had polled 321,456 votes, making up for 30.9 percent of the votes.

In his last visit, PM Modi  also highlighted the issues of the temples in Thrissur run by the state government, alleging the left and Congress governments combined have looted the religious places. He also reached out to the religious heads of the Christian community, assuring all support from the government. He met eight top church priests, including Syro-Malabar Catholic Church head Cardinal George Alencherry, Syro-Malankara Catholic Church head Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, Head of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church of India Baselios Marthoma Mathews III and Metropolitan Trustee of the Jacobite Church Joseph Mor Gregorios.

Attingal

The BJP is also keen on the traditional Left stronghold of Attingal in Thiruvananthapuram district. The seat made a volte face in the 2019 polls, when Adoor Prakash of the Congress emerged the winner. He faced BJP’s Shobha Surendran, who secured 24.18 percent of the votes, a drastic rise from the 10.6 percent the party had polled five years earlier.

In 2014, CPI(M) candidate Anirudhan Sampath had bagged 45.67 percent of the votes, while Congress’ Bindhu Krishna went home with 37.60 percent and BJP’s S Girija Kumari with 6.59 percent.

The Left’s debacle in the state seems to have stemmed from the resentment among Hindus towards the CPI (M) over the Sabarimala issue. The BJP, which has started preparations for the Lok Sabha polls is focused on fielding V Muraleedharan from Attingal.

During various meetings, his candidature from the seat has been supported by the RSS and the state and central leadership of the BJP. The party is taking the structure down to the panna samiti (voter page committee) level and building up conversations with the beneficiaries of central government schemes to garner support on ground.