BJP makes presence felt in south, North-East
Somewhere alongside the Congress and the left victories in the recent by-elections in Kerala and Tripura respectively, lies another story: That of the Bharatiya Janata Party's impressive performance. Without this narrative, there is really nothing to analyse in the results: The States' ruling parties registered wins in six seats in Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Meghalaya and Tripura. But in Kerala, while the BJP candidate came third behind the winner Congress-led United Democratic Front and the runner-up left Democratic Front, it garnered votes that were three times the number that the party's candidate had received in 2011 in the Aruvikkara Assembly constituency.
And, in the two reserved Assembly seats of Pratapgarh and Surma in Tripura, BJP candidates occupied the second spot, pushing the Congress to the third position. These are impressive results for the BJP in both Tripura and Kerala, with the latter going to polls in 2016. The party's performance in Tripura must be viewed in context of the concerted effort it has made to increase its footprint across the North-East, particularly Assam, Manipur and Nagaland. Earlier this year, the BJP won 39 of Assam’s 74 municipal boards and town committees, building on the momentum it had generated during the 2014 parliamentary election when it won seven of State’s 14 lok Sabha seats. The party has also been making steady gains in Kerala, where its 2014 performance took everyone by surprise. The Congress-led alliance and the left-led coalition have ruled the roost in Kerala and there never seemed space for a third option. Of course, it is too early to claim that the BJP has made such deep inroads in the State that it can be considered a serious replacement for either the lDF or the UDF.
Nevertheless, figures tell the story of the BJP's increasing presence. The BJP's O Rajagopal got an impressive 34,000 plus votes, despite being pitted against a senior left candidate and a Congress candidate who was riding a wave of sympathy. Notably, in 2014, Mr Rajagopal had lost the Thiruvananthapuram parliamentary seat by a thin margin of just 15,470 votes to Congress leader Shashi Tharoor. In that election, the BJP had almost doubled the number of votes polled in its favour and, thereby, increased its vote share in Kerala by four per cent. Add this week's by-poll results to the mix, and it’s clear that the BJP is making inroads in left and Congress bastions.
In Kerala, two factors have helped: First, the improvement in the BJP's organisational base and an increased presence of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which provides grassroots support to the party. Second, Kerala has tired not just of the misgovernance of the left but is also alarmed by the increase in political violence. In 2012, TP Chandrasekharan, a CPI(M) leader who had broken ranks to form his own party, was hacked to death. Earlier that year, Abdul Shukoor, a member of the Indian Union Muslim league, the largest constituent of the Congress-led UDF, was killed. In March 2014, T Navas was murdered in a case of mistaken identity wherein the target was BJP leader Kalladan Gireesh. In September last year, local BJP leader KT Manoj was killed while party president Amit Shah was touring the State.