Kerala poll verdict: BJP has opened its account, but the party has not been able to leverage the Modi factor after 2014

The euphoria of a single seat: the BJP in Kerala is in the throes of that strange feeling. The 86-year-old O Rajagopal — who had so far been taunted as Zero Rajagopal for having never won the previous 15 elections he contested — won Nemom, the first ever seat for the party in the state assembly. Even PM Narendra Modi tweeted about the singular achievement: “I salute all those who built the BJP in Kerala, brick by brick, decade after decade. It is due to them that we are seeing this day.” But after the high, comes the lowdown.

When Amit Shah and Co sit down with the numbers, Kerala still remains a knotty problem. The BJP, by itself, has not been able to dramatically swell the votes in its favour after the 2014 wave. In the two years of Modi rule, even after hectic canvassing for members, the BJP candidates — who contested in 98 of the 140 assembly seats, leaving 36 for its biggest ally, the Bharath Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) — have not been able to bring in even an extra 2 lakh votes. Its votes went up from 19.4 lakh in 2014 to just 21.2 lakh now.

And not all of Kerala has been enamoured by the party. Of the 140 seats, in 14 (18, if one includes the BDJS), the votes have slipped. Cricketer S Sreesanth, whom the central BJP leadership parachuted into the prestigious constituency of Thiruvananthapuram, got about 34,000 votes — among the highest polled by a BJP candidate in the state — but it still fell short of the 40,000-odd votes the party got from that assembly constituency in the 2014 general elections. Even state party president Kummanam Rajasekharan got only 200-odd votes more than what the party got from in 2014.



While the party got a respectable 10,000-20,000 votes in many constituencies and a threatening 30,000+ in some, it could cross the formidable 50,000 — the minimum requirement to win, going by this poll — in just three seats. While the BJP’s vote share jumped from 6% in the 2011 assembly polls to 10.5% in 2016, it has not been able to significantly leverage the Modi factor, cash in on the Modi magic since the 2014 general elections when it got about 10% votes.

Ally or Double-Edged Sword?
A party is also about the alliance it stitches and a big change has been wrought by a man in yellow silk: Vellappally Natesan, who was the face of the BDJS. The 78-year-old OBC leader, who has not contested even a panchayat election, cobbled together a party in December 2015: a party without an economic agenda or a political ideology except for a fuzzy pan-caste Hindutva that he called Nayadi muthal Namboodiri vare (from the lowest to the highest caste). This five-month-old party pulled in about 4% votes and kicked up the NDA’s vote share to over 14%.





In the caste cauldron of Kerala, the BDJS has proved to be a double-edged sword for the BJP. Since Natesan is also the head of the SNDP Yogam (Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam), an organisation for the uplift of the Ezhavas — who constitute about 25% of the population — and whose vast network of shakhas is as pervasive as the RSS’s, it was believed that he would tap them for votes. That seems to have worked, but only to an extent. The BDJS candidates did not win a single seat but got a little less than 8 lakh votes: over 25% of NDA votes.

According to a sample survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, while 65% Ezhavas voted for the CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) in 2011, it has slipped to 49% now. Meanwhile, Ezhava vote share went up for NDA: from 7% in 2011 to 17% (See Votes and Castes). The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) saw an erosion of its upper-caste Nair votes to the NDA. However, the Nair share of votes for the BJP alliance is not as much as it was in 2014. The reason could be the BDJS, with the upper-caste Nairs reluctant to vote for candidates of the BDJS led by an OBC. That the influential Nair organisation NSS distanced itself from the NDA further checked a flow of votes.

This shows the BJP’s difficulty in dramatically widening its vote base. To convert votes into seats, the BJP will need to effect a makeover like it did in Assam and create an expansive coalition. It has also realised the limits of the BDJS: while it got some Ezhava votes, the vast Ezhava belt in Kollam and Alappuzha remained resolutely red. This was the BJP’s golden hour in Kerala, with Modi in power, Shah pulling up the state unit and the entire party machinery gravitated towards creating magic in 2016. One seat, clearly, is not quite what it had in mind.

Modi has his fans: from the Gulf Malayali who loves the globe-trotting PM; to the people in Paravur who uncharacteristically voted for the BJP after he flew down to the site of the fire cracker tragedy; to those who fetishise Hindutva; to those who hold on to the promise of development; to those who fantasise a little of both Hindutva and progress.

But a state that erupts with the hashtag #PoMoneModi has its eyes peeled on the social media and is scrolling everything from Mohammad Akhlaq to Rohith Vemula. And a significant section of Malayalis — in a state which has 27% Muslims and 18% Christians — resents that hardline. To convert them, the party has to make itself politically accommodating, ideologically nimble. That would mean a Hindutva-mukt
BJP or at least a pretence of it.