More than three months after the declaration of the 2024 Lok Sabha election results, a battle of words have broken out in Kerala over the reasons for the BJP opening its account for the first time in the history of the State.
Suresh Gopi, the candidate fielded by the saffron party had won the Thrissur Lok Sabha seat with a comfortable margin of 75,000 votes defeating his nearest rival V S Sunil Kumar (CPI) and K Muraleedharan (Congress), the latter getting relegated to the third position.
Suresh Gopi was appointed as minister of state for tourism and oil and natural gas in the central government. Late last week, the CPI, a strong ally of the CPI(M) launched a fusillade against victory registered by the BJP candidate describing it as the fall out of the Thrissur Pooram fiasco. The Pooram, the biggest cultural extravaganza of Central Kerala, could not be held in its traditional splendor in 2024 because of the stringent regulations enforced by the police.
"There was a secret deal between the CPI(M) and the BJP to subvert the Thrissur Pooram festival. Any disruption in Pooram (festival) is sure to polarize the Hindu votes and this has resulted in Suresh Gopi winning the poll," said V D Satheeshan, Leader of the Opposition.
Sunil Kumar, the CPI candidate, attributed the disruption in Pooram to Gopi's win. "A thorough probe should be ordered into the reasons behind the failure of law enforcement agencies to hold the Pooram without any obstacles," said Sunil Kumar.
The CPI Kerala secretary Binoy Viswam echoed the version of Sunil Kumar and said there was a conspiracy behind the whole episode. K Muraleedharan, son of former chief minister K Karunakaran too alleged that there was a CPI(M)-BJP deal at Thrissur.
But it was known from the beginning that Suresh Gopi would win from Thrissur because of the rapport he had established with the people of the constituency. He had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha poll from the same constituency and had bagged 2,94,000 votes despite starting as a late comer. By 2024, his campaign picked up and he had established a clear lead even before the poll campaign gained steam. Moreover, the Christians in the constituency voted in large numbers for Suresh Gopi. "Though he had polled 2, 94,000 votes in 2019, his vote share crossed the 4,12,000 votes in 2024. The CPI's claim that there was a deal between BJP and the CPI(M) is total nonsense as the party candidate had polled 3,37,652 votes this time. This is 36,000 votes more than what the party candidate had polled in the 2019 election," said Sudheer Damodaran, a poll analyst who had worked with Prasanth Kishore in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Poll observers are of the view that no party could transfer a major portion of their votes to the rivals without the knowledge of the voters. "It seems the CPI and Congress leaders are still stuck up in the ballot paper mentality when it was possible to rig the ballot papers as well as polling stations.
It is beyond our imagination to accept that the CPI(M) which had murdered hundreds of BJP/RSS workers in the past would ask its cadres to vote for the arch rivals," said Sushil Pandit, political commentator who has studied comprehensively about politics in Kerala.
Kevin Peter, president, CASA , told he Pioneer that the CPI and the Congress were upset because they fear that they would be washed out of the State's political landscape if a Hindu-Christian unity remains sustainable.
