Prime Minister Narendra Modi is flying down to Kochi next Tuesday to hold a road show in Kerala, his second in as many weeks. The Congress as well as the CPI(M) and the fringe outfits supporting these parties fear that the BJP to go out for an all out campaign to open its account from the State in the upcoming Lok Sabha election.
The Prime Minister’s road show held on 3 January at Thrissur, the cultural capital of the State, has been a major success, going by the size of the crowd gathered for the public meeting and also the number of people, especially women, who lined up the throughfare in the town to greet him. His public speech in which he articulated the welfare measures implemented by the Union Government with the suffix “Modiyude Guarantee” (Malayalam for Modi’s Guarantee) has become a war cry for the BJP.
Modi will take off to the Lord Krishn Temple at Guruvayur on Wednesday morning to attend the wedding of Bhagya, daughter of former Rajya Sabha member Suresh Gopi. It is widely believed that Suresh Gopi is being fielded by the BJP from the Thrissur Lok Sabha constituency as its candidate.
The Prime Minister will return to Kochi and is scheduled to inaugurate a series of projects implemented by the Central Government. He is visiting Cochin Shipyard Ltd where works of the battleship meant for Indian Navy are in progress. Modi will also interact with the party’s State-level office bearers during his tour.
Though the Prime Minister commands wide respect and adoration among the people of the State, the same cannot be said about the Kerala BJP. The party, despite the bountiful financial help provided by the Central leadership has failed to win at least one seat from Kerala since the party was formed in 1980. Despite its image as a Hindutva outfit, the BJP has succeeded in attracting Christian community members but the State leadership has failed successively to take them into confidence and enlarge the vote base of the party.
Internal squabbling and playing the game of one-upmanship together with the absence of an effective leader are seen as the reason for the party’s failure. The best performance by the BJP till date has been the 2016 assembly polls when the party polled 14.9 per cent. But this fell down to 12 per cent in the 2021 election.
There is widespread resentment among the party cadre against union minister of state V Muraleedharan who has been elected to Rajya Sabha from north Indian States and K Surendran, the state party chief. Surendran will go down in history as the first State chief who has been listed as an accused in hawala transaction and electoral manipulation,” said a party insider. He also pointed out that Muraleedharan does not allow anyone to grow up in the party. “We had succeeded in fielding a former director general of police Dr Jacob Thomas as party candidate in the 2021 assembly election. But the Muraleedharan-Surendran combo does not like induction of efficient persons like Dr Thomas and Metro Man E Sreedharan in the party,” said the party’s leader.
The general impression is that Surendran and Muraleedharan should be shown the door for the BJP to take roots in Kerala.