“On how many seats is BJP in serious dispute?” Former state party chief and candidate from Manjeshwaram K Surendran got angry at this question. He further said, “We are ahead on all 140 seats, we are contesting to form the government.” Surendran’s sharp reaction reflected the emerging mindset in a party that no longer thinks of itself as a side show in a state where the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front or the Congress-led United Democratic Front have always been in power. Instead, in 2026, she is looking to make her presence felt, expand her base, influence outcomes and quickly gain power.
VV Rajesh, the first BJP mayor of Thiruvananthapuram, looks at this question differently. He says that there are about 30 to 40 assembly constituencies where party candidates have got more than 35,000 votes at one time or the other. He says that more than 10,000 votes in any of these constituencies can swing the verdict in BJP’s favor in the triangular contest. There are about a dozen seats in Kerala where BJP can be in serious contention. The party may not be able to win any of these, or may not be able to surprise even the most seasoned political veterans and win up to half a dozen of them. But the fact is that the BJP in Kerala is now in a position to influence the results on many seats in different geographical areas.
Since its inception in 1980, the BJP has got only one MLA (2016) and one MP (2024) from Kerala. Its vote share was 6.03% in 2011, 10.53% in 2016 and 11.3% in 2021. In general elections, the party received 10.3% votes in 2014, 12.9% in 2019 and 16.7% in 2024. The difference between assembly elections and general elections is in line with Kerala’s voting preferences: national parties perform better in Lok Sabha elections than in assembly elections, as evidenced by the Congress winning 19 out of 20 seats in 2019 and 18 out of 20 seats in 2024, even when the LDF was ruling the state.
Then why is there discussion about BJP in this election? In recent local bodies, the BJP won the Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation, municipalities of Palakkad and Tripunithura and several panchayats. The party has attracted former MLAs and leaders from the Left – three are in the party’s candidate list this time. The party’s high-voltage campaigns draw large crowds, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s road shows.
Some candidates – party chief Rajeev Chandrasekhar (Nemom), former Union minister V Muraleedharan (Kazhakkottam), Shobha Surendran (Palakkad), K Surendran (Manjeshwaram), Gopakumar (Chathannur), late Congress leader K Karunakaran’s daughter Padmaja Venugopal (Thrissur) – are hoping to cause an upset in the triangular contest. Constituencies like Thiruvalla (Anup Antony), Pala (Shon George), Vattiyurakkavu (Kerala’s first woman DGP Sreelekha), and Aranmula (former governor Kummanam Rajasekharan) may also be in store for an unexpected contest.
For example, K Surendran lost from Manjeshwaram by 74 votes in 2016 and by 745 votes in 2021. Shobha Surendran, the party’s most energetic campaigner, has been successful in garnering votes wherever she has contested elections in the past. “Politics is a storm, and look at what we did in Tripura, where our vote share increased by 2% and brought us to power,” he said.
What is the reason for this increasing attraction towards BJP?
First, since coming to power at the Center in 2014, the party has started influencing voting behavior in Kerala. By 2014, the BJP had little to offer the voters of Kerala in terms of patronage, which the LDF and UDF could offer due to their presence in the institutions of governance. Power in Delhi has enabled the BJP to break this monopoly and provide patronage in its own way. The party has the resources to turn election campaigns into impressive spectacles that make an impact on voters.
Two, the BJP’s transformation as the party ruling at the Center and its vigorous claim that it represents Hindu interests has also found resonance in Kerala. There are 54% Hindus in Kerala. They are divided along caste and party lines, and spread across the LDF and UDF, although the CPI(M) traditionally receives a large number of Hindu votes. The BJP is changing this pattern and gradually building an pan-caste, pan-regional Hindu vote.
J Prabhash, a former professor of political science at the University of Kerala, said, “The hesitation towards the BJP has gone away among Left and Congress leaders and voters.” CPI(M) general secretary MA Baby said the rise of the BJP in Kerala was the result of the middle class’ preference to remain close to power. “This process had started way back in the 1990s when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was elected to power and the BJP’s current uninterrupted sequence of tenures has helped the party attract new followers,” he said.
Three, the pace of the BJP’s social engineering project may be slow, but it has helped the party expand beyond its traditional Hindu base. Noted writer S Harish said, “In Kottayam, the BJP has successfully reached out to the Ezhava community, the main base of the Left, by including the BDJS (Bharat Dharma Jana Sena), supported by the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam. The BJP has also wooed representatives of marginalized OBC groups in the UDF-LDF powerplay.” More importantly, the party has started reaching out to Christian sects, which are influential in South and Central Kerala. The party has interestingly given 20 seats to Twenty 20, the corporate party founded by Sabu George, which had attracted middle class voters in constituencies like Kunnathunadu. The party has invested in young leaders from the Christian community – for example, Anup Antony – as a long-term investment to win seats in Central Kerala. However, John Samuel, head of the public policy wing of the Congress in Kerala, said the BJP’s attempt would fail. The protests over the new FCRA bill point to a troubled Christian leadership.
A look at the three main strongholds of the BJP provides interesting insights. According to writer and filmmaker MA Rahman, Manjeshwaram in Kasaragod district, adjacent to Mangaluru in Karnataka, is a melting pot of languages and cultures. Outgoing Muslim League MLA AKM Ashraf is fluent in Malayalam, Kannada and Tulu, and is confident of a successful third term. “The BJP vote has been saturated and its polarization can no longer work here,” he said. The BJP has alleged that the UDF and LDF are bargaining to deny the party victory here. Palakkad borders Tamil Nadu to the south-east. Once a red bastion (it has elected communist stalwarts like AK Gopalan and AK Nayanar to the Lok Sabha in the past), the city swung in favor of the BJP in the recent local body elections. In the south, Thiruvananthapuram is where the BJP has organizational strength, and made its first mark by winning nearly 100,000 votes in the 1984 general election. In 1982, before the elections, there was a Hindu-Muslim riot in the main market of the city.
Thiruvananthapuram Mayor Rajesh said the BJP’s rise coincided with the rise of a new Hindu religiosity in the 1990s. “We associated with many religious spiritual groups and created a favorable environment in favor of the party,” Rajesh said. The party’s transformation is most evident in the seven-storey headquarters (Marar Bhawan), which has replaced the small bungalow in which party leaders lived until last year.
The temple has been a place of socialization for the BJP. The last few decades have seen a rapid increase in religiosity, renovation of temples and revival of rituals. The annual festival at Attukal Devi Temple in Thiruvananthapuram sees a large crowd of women. Sabarimala protests led by women saw a reiteration of Hindu orthodoxy. Recently, the Kumbh Mela was organized at Thirunavaya in Malappuram. Prabhash argued that the BJP’s spread has come through middle-class women, for many of whom temples are the only public places they visit. According to Prabhash, temple festivals, bhajan evenings, lectures, rituals and pilgrimages have been entry points for the party to recruit potential supporters.
BJP’s Hindu assertion may result in anti-Left mobilization, which will benefit the UDF. The party’s support for films such as Kerala Story, which critics have described as Islamophobic, and campaigns around food and diet (e.g. beef) may also work against the party. If it is a close election, the BJP will be expected to emerge with a handful of seats and be the arbiter in a hung assembly. The truth is that Kerala’s bipolar politics is under tension. But no one can predict whether the 2026 elections will prove to be a successful election for BJP or not.
