BJP’s axis to scale the ‘final frontier’

"What you see is nothing but a display of its financial muscle by the BJP, which has pumped in crores of rupees into the State," says V.M. Sudheeran

BJP candidate S. Sreesanth in Thiruvananthapuram. With a new alliance and by fielding celebrities, the party is trying to open its account in Kerala.

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah pushed for a tie-up with the Bharatiya Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), founded with the blessings of the powerful Ezhava community leader Vellappally Natesan barely six months ago, many had discounted the possibility of its proving a game changer in the State.

But, as the campaign for the May 16 Assembly election hits the final lap, the United Democratic Front and the Left Democratic Front are worried about the impact the alliance would have on their fortunes in some key constituencies.

Money muscle

Leaders of the Congress and rival CPI(M) assert that the alliance would have no impact.

“What you see is nothing but a display of its financial muscle by the BJP, which has pumped in crores of rupees into the State,” says Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president V.M. Sudheeran, while commenting on the unprecedented high-voltage campaign that has been mounted by the BJP in Kerala this time, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and over 15 Union Ministers campaigning hard.

However, campaign managers in over a dozen constituencies such as Malampuzha, where Leader of the Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan is in the fray, Ranni and Thiruvalla in Pathanamthitta district, Ettumanur, Vaikom and Poonjar in Kottayam, Kuttanad in Alappuzha, Udumbanchola, Devikulam and Peerumedu in Idukki, Vypeen in Ernakulam, Kodungalloor in Thrissur and Kovalam in Thiruvananthapuram are worried. The worry is that the BJP’s BDJS gambit would pay off in constituencies such as these, hurting either of the two fronts.

Unpredictable

Who would get hurt most is something difficult to predict going by the experience of the 2014 Lok Sabha and 2015 local government elections, both of which saw the BJP’s total vote share going up in the politically bipolar State.

In the 2014 elections, the BJP could notch up 10.83 per cent of the votes almost on its own, up from 6.43 per cent in the 2009 Lok Sabha election and 6.06 per cent in the 2011 Assembly election.

The BJP-BDJS alliance was but an idea in the making at the time and did not have any significant impact.

However, by the time the local government elections were held in November 2015, there was a surge in BJP votes, taking its vote share to 14.8 per cent.