Amid the Congress surge and the CPI-M slide in Kerala, the BJP created history in the state by winning its first-ever Lok Sabha seat from the Thrissur Constituency.
BJP leader Suresh Gopi’s victory in Thrissur is giving a clear indication that Kerala’s bipolar political landscape is giving way to a tripolar scenario. Suresh Gopi’s spectacular victory in Thrissur, along with the impressive performances of Union Ministers Rajeev Chandrasekhar and V Muraleedharan in Thiruvananthapuram and Attingal, respectively, and party state vice-president Shobha Surendran in Alappuzha, has demonstrated that the party can penetrate the strongholds of both the Congress-led United Democratic Front and the CPI-M-led LDF.
Suresh Gopi’s victory further reinforces the on-ground political reality that the BJP is no longer anathema to Kerala voters. The leaders of both the UDF and LDF were confident that the BJP would not win any seat from Kerala this time as well. They used to assert that the secular-minded people in Kerala would not elect BJP candidates from the state. Congress leader Sashi Tharoor even stated on the day before the counting of votes that the question of whether the lotus will bloom in Kerala should be asked in 2029, as there is no possibility of it happening here in 2024.
Suresh Gopi’s victory in the Thrissur Lok Sabha constituency, with a commendable margin of around 75,000 votes, will have a resounding impact on the politics of Kerala. The lone seat in Kerala may serve as a springboard for the BJP for further expansion in a state that has long shunned its outreach efforts. However, many political experts do not view Suresh Gopi’s win as an outright political victory for the BJP. They attribute the success more to the actor politician’s personal appeal and widespread acceptance, which transcend politics.
As in the last general election in 2019, the LDF won just one seat this time as well. The BJP also won one seat from the state in this year’s Lok Sabha polls. There could be no greater political disgrace for the CPI-M than to share the same tally as the BJP in Kerala.
In the current polls, the BJP secured 16.68 per cent of the total votes polled, while the CPI-M and the Congress received 25.8 per cent and 35.06 per cent, respectively. The BJP-Bharath Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) combine obtained 19.21 per cent votes.
The general view that the BJP eats into the UDF’s vote share has proved wrong in this election. This time, the has cut into the CPI-M vote base too. Unlike in the past, the CPI-M’s traditional vote base is no longer a sure bet. A change in the bipolar scenario shows that a section of CPI-M sympathisers has voted for the UDF and the BJP too. In the Alappuzha constituency, BJP candidate Sobha Surendran has increased the saffron party’s vote share by 11.06 per cent compared to the voters polled by the BJP candidate last time. Of this, only 1.79 per cent has gone from the UDF’s kitty, while a large chunk of 8.75 has moved to the BJP from the LDF’s share. Sobha Surendran’s stunning gains in the Alappuzha constituency, widely reckoned as a CPI-M bastion, has sent shock waves to the Left party.
An analysis of the Lok Sabha poll results in Kerala shows that the UDF came first in 111 Assembly segments, while the LDF came first in 18 assembly constituencies. The BJP came first in 11 assembly segments, while it came second in 18 constituencies.
Political analysts are of the view that the Muslim appeasement card played by the CPI-M with its over-emphasis on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) didn’t bear fruit, but also seems to have backfired, as neither the minority nor the majority chose to stand with the LDF. The result shows that the minorities view the Congress as an alternative to the BJP at the Centre.
Though the UDF achieved a commendable victory, Congress stalwart K Muraleedharan’s humiliating third-place show in the party’s sitting seat has come as a shocker and is undoubtedly a setback for the Congress.