With the announcement of candidates for 195 Lok Sabha seats for 2024, the BJP has set a ground-breaking scenario in all the States, especially in Kerala. This is the State where the BJP has not opened its account till now in Lok Sabha. BJP is not able to win any seats out of 20 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala. The politics of Kerala revolve around the two alliances, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) headed by the Communists and the Congress party. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls only in Kerala, the Congress party won seats in double digits. Out of 52 seats in the entire country the Congress won 15 seats from Kerala only. So Kerala has special significance for the Congress party.
The BJP has huge potential in Kerala, but the party is a victim of the bi-polar politics between the LDF and the UDF. The BJP gets sandwiched between these two alliances. The BJP is sure to repeat the example of Tripura and West Bengal in Kerala too. The BJP did not open its account in Tripura till 2018. In the 2018 Tripura Assembly elections, the BJP opened its account with 36 seats, which is more than a full majority in the 60 member State Assembly. Again, in West Bengal, the BJP won only 3 assembly seats in the 2016 Assembly Elections. But in the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections, the BJP won 77 seats. The BJP for the first time opened its account in the West Bengal Assembly in 2016 with 3 seats and again performed with 77 seats in 2021. In the 2019 LS poll, the BJP won 18 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal.
The BJP is losing the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat for last two elections by narrow margin. This time the BJP has put Union Minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar as its candidate. The cadres of the Congress party are not in harmony with Shashi Tharoor, incumbent Congress MP, as he put his candidature against the Gandhi family recommended candidate Mallikajun Kharge. So the Congress cadres will ensure the defeat of Tharoor.
The Congress high command will give ticket to Tharoor only to ensure his defeat and his public humiliation. Besides Chandrashekhar, the BJP has also put forward several winnable candidates in Kerala, like Suresh Gopi, Anil Antony. V Muraleedharan, Sobha Surendran and others. Suresh Gopi garnered nearly 3 lakh votes in Thrissur in 2019 LS poll. On Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha seat again, the BJP garnered nearly 3 lakh votes, and the party is all set to win such seats. On the Attingal LS seat, the BJP garnered nearly 2.5 lakh votes and the BJP is all set to give stiff fight to the LDF and UDF on these seats.
Union Minister V Muraleedharan is the BJP candidate for the Attingal seat. The BJP will also get support from the inherent dichotomy between the cadres of the Congress party and the Communists. The Congress party was looking for support to Rahul Gandhi in the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat from the Communists to ensure his victory. The Congress would reciprocate the Communists’ support for their candidates in any other seat of Communist choice, but the CPI put its secretary, D Raja’s wife, Annie Raja as the LDF nominee in this seat. So the cadres of the Congress party are disillusioned with the Communists not only in Kerala but also in West Bengal and Tripura, States where the Communists still mass base.
So the cadres of these two alliances in Kerala will vote tacitly to defeat each other. The cadres of the Communists will try their best to further weaken the Congress party so that the UDF will not be able to put up a strong fight in 2026 Assembly election in Kerala. If the Congress party does not perform well in Kerala in this Lok Sabha election, then the Congress party will not be able to put up a strong fight in 2026 Assembly poll against the P Vijayan led LDF dispensation in State. Since the Congress party failed to form a government in Kerala in 2021, the morale of the Congress party and UDF cadres is at its lowest ebb. Its tradition in Kerala to change the Government between the LDF and UDF since 1982, as like in Rajasthan between the BJP and the Congress party since 1993. After Rahul Gandhi became MP from Wayanad in 2019, the Congress led UDF failed for the first time since 1982 to bounce back in government.
The Congress party’s plight in Kerala can be gauged from the fact that the party is losing its vote base rapidly. In 2019 LS poll, the Congress party established a lead in 96 assembly seats. In in 2021 Assembly election, the Congress party won only 21 seats. This all happened only after Rahul Gandhi’s entry into Kerala politics directly as a Wayanad representative in the Lok Sabha. Reversely, the CPIM, which established a lead of only 16 ACs in Lok Sabha poll in 2019 LS poll, won 62 assembly seats.
The CPI which had not established a lead on any assembly seat in the 2019 LS election, had won 17 assembly seats. In the 2021 Assembly election in Kerala, the Congress party performance was the worst since the 1970 Assembly poll. Kerala was famous for tight electoral battle between the LDF and the UDF before Rahul Gandhi’s entry into State politics. In 2011 Assembly elections, the UDF won 72 seats and the LDF 68 seats, with a vote difference of 156173 votes in favour of INC led UDF. But nowadays the elections in Kerala are not so evenly poised, and the Congress party has lost much of its base. The BJP may gain a lot, and in the coming Lok Sabha poll the Communists and the BJP led alliance may go for direct contest on many seats in Kerala.
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