The party’s brilliant performance in the Karnataka Assembly election has given a new energy and spirit to the leaders, workers and sympathisers of the BJP in Chengannur, the Kerala Assembly constituency where a by-election is to be held on May 28, despite the confusions created by the Congress-JD(S) political games.
The results of the Karnataka election have come at a time when psephologists in Kerala have been granting a clear edge for CPI(M)’s nominee Saji Cherian of the party-led lDF in the fierce triangular bypoll battle and the new development will certainly cause changes in the mood of the electorate in Chengannur, say observers. BJP sources feel that the main campaign planks of the lDF and the Congress-led UDF – which has fielded senior native leader D Vijayakumar – like Kathua, Unnao, demonetization, problems in the implementation of the GST, etc have already become irrelevant as issues in the bypoll as the people in Karnataka have already rejected these by giving 104 seats to BJP out of 222.
In the 2016 Assembly election, BJP’s NDA candidate PS Sreedharan Pillai, who is the alliance’s candidate in this bypoll as well, had polled 42,682 votes by claiming the third position. This was just 10,198 votes less than what the lDF’s winner KK Ramachandran Nair whose death on January 14 last necessitated the by-election in Chengannur had polled.
A top leader of the State BJP told The Pioneer that the impact of the Karnataka results on the Chengannur electorate would be powerful enough for the party to offset this difference.