Will lotus bloom in Kerala?

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders believe that the party will win at least one seat in the 16th Lok Sabha elections to be held in Kerala on April 10. The optimism is based on the Narendra Modi factor that the BJP claims has triggered a wave across the country.

BJP state president V. Muralidharan is confident that the ripple effect of the Modi wave will be felt in the southern state, which has never elected anyone from the party to either the Lok Sabha or the state assembly so far. Muralidharan, who is leading the BJP campaign in the state, says the situation will change now.

He points out the huge crowd Modi, the prime ministerial candidate of his party, attracted at two rallies he addressed in the state in the run up to the polls as a strong indication of the growing acceptability of BJP under Modi in Kerala, where minorities account for over 45 per cent of the total electorate.

The BJP leaders say that the rallies Modi addressed at Cochin and Trivandrum on February 9 had helped in consolidating the Hindus behind the party. They view the words of praise Vellapally Natesn, general secretary of Sree Narayana Dharmaparipalana Yogam, had for Modi as an encouraging sign.

The new awakening seen among the Dalits, who felt neglected by both the dominant fronts led by the Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), is also reckoned by the BJP as a factor favouring them. Modi was able to strike a chord with the backward community when he opened the Kerala Pulayar Mahasabha conclave at Cochin on February 9.

The BJP leaders are also expecting support from the minority communities this time. They see the willingness shown by some bishops to interact with Modi during his visit to the state as an indication of the narrowing gulf between the party and the Christian community.

The BJP hopes that all these factors will help the party to win at least one seat this time. But the ground realities are not as rosy as the party leaders have made out to be. While the minorities still consider BJP untouchable, the majority communities are not ready to leave their affiliations with the two dominant fronts.

Both the major Hindu organisations, the SNDP and Nair Service Society (NSS), have rejected the BJP call for alliance. Though the SNDP leader praised Modi, his appeal to his followers is to vote for candidates who support the community most. The support Natesan expects apparently is not in Delhi but in Kerala, where he has a lot at stake.

Though the NSS has more than once expressed their displeasure over the ruling front, the body representing the upper caste Nair community, has not yet given any hint to which way they will vote in this election. The NSS has been following an equi-distance policy for a long time now.

The major problem affecting the BJP in Kerala is the party’s failure to get allies. With almost all the small parties and organisations aligning with either the LDF or the UDF, the BJP has been finding it difficult to get allies. Interestingly, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by the BJP could win the Muvattupuzha Lok Sabha seat in 2004 when a breakaway faction of the Kerala Congress (M) was its ally.

The two seats which the BJP think will swing towards them are Trivandrum and Kasargod, bordering Tamil Nadu and Karnataka respectively. Senior leader O Rajagopal, who finished a close third in Trivandrum in 2004 with 29.86 percent votes, has made both Shashi Tharoor (Congress) and Dr Bennet Abraham (LDF) sweat. However, he still needs a long way to make it a win.

K Surendran, the most vocal leader of the BJP in Kerala, has also put up a major challenge in Kasargod. The BJP leaders hope that the campaign by Modi in his constituency on April 8 may help him to break the ground. The BJP is pinning hopes on these two seats to open its account in Kerala.

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