Kerala sees a wave of defections to the BJP ahead of the Assembly elections
Unprecedented developments are happening in Kerala politics. The last three days saw a sitting MLA who belonged to the CPI quitting the party and joining the BJP. C C Mukundan, the MLA representing Nattika Assembly constituency, resigned from the CPI, citing money and muscle power prevailing in the party after he was denied the seat to contest in the upcoming election to the Legislative Assembly. Mukundan, who had put his life and savings to develop the party, but the CPI leadership, particularly its State secretary Binoy Viswam, preferred to field Geetha Gopi, an old flame of Viswam.
Mukundan joined the BJP on Monday and is all set to contest against Geetha Gopi at Nattika. This was not an isolated incident. M N Job, general secretary of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee, who hails from Ambalappuzha, resigned from the Congress and declared his intention to join the saffron party. The decision is a sequel to the Congress decision to support G Sudhakaran, who had quit the CPI(M) and was contesting from Ambalappuzha as an independent. Job was shocked that Sudhakaran, who has been a staunch critic of the Congress and who is contesting this election as an independent candidate after falling out with the Marxists, was offered support by the GOP. “This is a ridiculous decision. Sudhakaran represented the constituency six times in the Assembly and was a minister twice. How can the Congress overlook the sacrifice and hard work by hundreds of young party workers and extend support to a political turncoat?,” asked Job, who hails from the Latin Catholic community.
Elsewhere in the state, many MLAs (former as well as sitting) are leaving their parties and joining the BJP, which is seen as a Hindu nationalist force. A former MLA from Vaikkom in Ernakulam district and the former chairperson of Paravoor Municipal Council, who was with the Congress, has sought refuge in the BJP. “Though nothing was surprising in their move, I expected this exodus to happen only after 4th May 2026, the day when results of the poll would be announced,” said P Sujathan, veteran scribe and chronicler of Kerala’s political and social history. Elsewhere in the state, Padmaja Venugopal, daughter of the late K Karunakaran, the Congress strongman, is contesting from Thrissur Assembly constituency. Adding power to the BJP punch is the father-son combination of P C George and Shone George, who joined the BJP because of the charisma and halo around Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
George, a seven-time legislator, is contesting from Poonjar in Kottayam district, while Shone George has been fielded by the BJP from Pala, a traditional Kerala Congress bastion. Pala is the home turf of late K M Mani, who was one of the founding leaders of the party. Interestingly, Shone will lock horns with Jose K Mani, who has taken over the mantle of the KC from his father Mani.
Vadayar Sunil, a seasoned political commentator and chief editor of India Live, a budding news channel, is of the view that Kerala is in for a surprise this time. “BJP is fighting hard to win 35 seats where they have a good track record. Candidatures of R Sreelekha, former director general of police, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Shobha Surendran, and C Krishnakumar have added to the strength of the party. They have been working hard in all the constituencies where they finished second and third in the 2021 assembly polls,” says Sunil, who has travelled across the State in the run-up to the election and is getting ready for his next journey to know the pulse of the voters from Kasaragod to Thiruvananthapuram. What makes Sunil’s mission credible is his ability to communicate with the voters in their own terms. Tea shops, vegetable vendors, paan shops, neighborhood kirana shops (provision and grocery shops) are his hunting spots besides paddy fields and the industrial graveyard stretching from the northern to the southern ends of Kerala.
“While the CPI(M) and Congress are plagued with internal issues which have weakened the hold of these parties over the electorate, the BJP has no discernible infightings and group rivalries. But the State leadership of the BJP is yet to understand the magnitude of the goodwill the party has among the electorate. Rajeev Chandrasekhar is an exception in this case. Other leaders should spread across the state and communicate with the people. I hope the BJP-led NDA is capable of bagging at least 18 seats in this election,” said Sujathan, who has no love lost for the Hindutva party.
Sunil rates the alliance between Twenty 20, a political outfit launched by industrialist Sabu Jacob, and the BJP as literally shocking both the LDF and UDF. Chandrasekhar and Jacob represent the changing faces of Kerala politics. Both focus on development as their mantra, and Twenty 20 have proved their might in the 2020 local body election by winning a dozen panchayats in Ernakulam district. “The results are there to be felt and experienced. All these panchayats ruled by the Twenty 20 saw the construction and relaying of new ring roads and the opening of supermarkets where those from the lower strata could shop. Sabu Jacob, who faced a lot of hardship and victimization during the CPI(M) regime, is a man with a vision for the development of the state. Remember that the Telangana government had sent its aircraft to Kochi to ferry Sabu to Hyderabad so that he could launch textile industries in that State,” said Sunil.
The NDA-led by the BJP has launched the election campaign with the battle cry “The unchanged will change”. Once the election schedule was announced, it came out with the slogan “LDF and UDF-both are the same”. If initial responses to the campaign slogan are any indication, it has clicked with the voters.
The UDF and the LDF are houses divided due to many factors. The decision of the Congress to align with Jamaat-E-Islami, which stands for an Islamic theocratic state, and other extremist Islamic organizations like the banned Popular Front of India, SDPI, and PDP, has antagonized the followers of Sanatana Dharma. Swamy Chidanandapuri, the Pontiff of the Advaitha Ashram at Kulathoor, who is the de facto spiritual leader of the Hindus, has come out and asked the community members to vote en masse for the candidates fielded by the NDA. “I would love to see the NDA coming to power in Kerala. But it is not possible to win 71 seats, the halfway mark required to form a government, because of the prevailing demography. Wherever the NDA is strong, vote for them. Or elect the candidates who are least inimical to Hindu causes,” said the Pontiff while asking the electorate to stay away from the Congress-led UDF.
Even as this article is being written, TV news channels are flashing news about the ever-widening rift between Congress leaders in the state and the Congress High Command. Though Leader of the Opposition V D Satheesan has claimed that the Jamaat-E-Islami leadership had told him that the outfit no longer believed in a theocratic state, the leadership was quick to rebut him and said that there is no change in its stance which believes in what the Holy Quran demands in Sura 9, Ayath-5 (But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye finds them And seize them, beleaguer them, And lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war).
This was retold by none other than A K Balan, CPI(M) central committee member and former minister of Kerala. “The UDF, if voted to power, would end up as the acolytes of Jamaat-E-Islami, which will call the shots in the administration of the state, especially the department of law and order”.
The Islamic leaders have already made it clear that the properties belonging to temples in the state should be taken over by the government and used for the welfare of the minorities.
If the NDA gains “critical mass” by winning double-digit seats, Kerala will see a hung Assembly, and the CPI(M) and the Congress would be forced to come together to form the government. That’s what the people are waiting for. Both fronts have entered into a secret pact to defeat the BJP candidates by transferring votes to the rival candidate who has a winnability. In a three-cornered contest, a little less than the prospective winner requires is just 40 percent of the votes polled in the constituency. Even if the remaining 60 percent of votes get dissipated among the other two, the person who manages 40 percent finishes first because of the first past the finish line. More interesting news is happening in Kerala as many top Congress leaders from Assam and Bengal are leaving the party for good ans join the Hindutva forces.
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1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
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