Rajeev ChandrashekharThe state president of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Kerala is leading the party’s charge to break the monopoly of the Left Democratic Front-United Democratic Front. He has also mounted his challenge in Nemom constituency, where he contests against sitting MLA and General Education Minister V. Sivankutty of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and former Congress MLA KS Sabarinadhan. In 2016, the BJP opened its account in the Kerala Assembly for the first time, when O. Rajagopal had won from Nemom. However, after losing the constituency, the BJP is back to zero seats in 2021. The party is now counting on Mr Chandrashekhar to recapture Nemom. Excerpts from an interview with The Hindu: :
BJP got a major success when it won Thiruvananthapuram Corporation in the local body elections in 2025. But at the same time, the party’s total vote share across Kerala was only 14.76%, compared to around 20% in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Are you a little worried before the assembly elections?
Local body elections are generally not fought on party lines. For us, the local body elections have taken a big leap. We have fielded around 22,000 candidates, which is more than ever before. Vote share may vary from Lok Sabha election. But the seats we got were spread across the state. Earlier, we were limited to Palakkad and some areas around Thiruvananthapuram or Thrissur. Thrissur was one of the areas where we had a bigger loss in votes compared to the Lok Sabha elections. This had a lot to do with mistakes in candidate selection and campaign management, due to which we went from 40% in the Lok Sabha (elections) to 20% in the local body elections in the district. So if you remove that one deviation, we performed very well.
You are running an aggressive campaign against minority communities, both Muslims and Christians. Do you think you can address the apprehensions of these communities, be it the issues faced by Muslims or the attacks on nuns and churches in some BJP-ruled states?
For thirty years, minorities have been force-fed this false narrative about BJP that we are communal and only care about Hindus. “I am ready to support you, but you should tell your people not to burn our churches,” an old woman told me during the 2024 Lok Sabha election campaign in Pozhiyur, Thiruvananthapuram. After I became party president, we have decided to meet Malayalees across the state to share our developmental vision and assure them that we will not harm anyone. With regard to events in the North, neither I nor the BJP can speak for all 140 crore Indians, or all Hindus. If there are mad persons who take the law into their own hands, then the laws of those states should be implemented. I have assured that whenever any Malayali is in trouble, you can count on me.
Most of these attacks have reportedly been carried out by Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad which are part of the larger Sangh Parivar. Do you think his actions are detrimental to the BJP’s prospects in Kerala?
I can’t speak for them. In Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand, anti-conversion laws are also being passed by Congress governments, as they believe it poses a major threat to indigenous communities. Kerala Congress MPs go to Chhattisgarh to get photographed with the nuns, but not a single local Congressman joins in. They won’t do that because of the dynamics there.
BJP is positioning itself as an alternative to LDF and UDF. The LDF and UDF have criticized the BJP-led central government over disaster relief funds for Kerala, especially after the 2018 floods or landslides in Wayanad. Do you think these allegations will affect your prospects?
When a government is not able to function, they will find someone to blame, which they are doing against the Centre. They were unable to prove in the Supreme Court that the Center had done injustice to the state. When so much money is visible in the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF), on what basis can the Center give more?
But doesn’t the Center generally give a special package when such disasters occur in BJP ruled states?
This is not a piggy bank where anyone can go and borrow money without accountability. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, every rupee will have to be properly accounted for. For example, when a disaster hits Himachal Pradesh, it will have to account for where its SDRF money is. Only then can he claim for additional top-up funds. Which the Kerala government is not ready to do.
On that note, what do you think about the BJP’s concept of ‘double engine government’ at the Center and the state?
In a federal democracy, if you have a state government that is hostile to the Center round the clock, the people of the state will suffer. Double engine government means agreement on the basic problems that need to be solved. When two governments from the same party are working together, you have very little scope for policies not being implemented. In some cases, effective cooperation is possible even when the government is not of the ruling party at the centre. For example, it worked for Naveen Patnaik’s government in Odisha.
But in Odisha also you campaigned for ‘double engine government’. So, does this also mean that unless there is a BJP government in the state, you will not get any benefit?
No, quite the contrary. Double engine government protects the people from exposure to any political conflict that comes in the way of their development.
The BJP’s main allegation is that the LDF government has failed the state in all areas. However, the central government’s own agencies such as NITI Aayog have given Kerala high rankings in health and education over the last 10 years. Ease of Doing Business (EODB) ranking has also improved from 28 to 1. How do you explain this paradox?
This is not a contradiction at all. EODB’s metric is not the same as attracting investment or creating jobs. Kerala has the highest unemployment rate in India today. Isn’t this a statistic that impresses people more? EODB is a sample survey that focuses on businesses already existing in Kerala and not on those looking to invest from outside. So, when business activity is low in Kerala, you are only sampling what is already here. Similarly, access to education has been high in Kerala. You have to measure not just the infrastructure but also the quality of the classes. There are no internships, industry linkages or modern labs except in a few private colleges.
Recently, you attributed Kerala’s low infant mortality rate (IMR) to youth migration, although IMR is calculated as deaths per 1,000 live births, not total births. The LDF compares the IMR with many BJP-ruled states, in which the IMR and other metrics are still very high.
I said that there is a Marxist tendency to selectively promote some data as an achievement. Low IMR is not a good thing, but if you only make it an issue and don’t discuss everything around it, then you are trying to fool people. You should also speak about youth migration and low birth rates. Comparison with Uttar Pradesh and Bihar is wrong because these states have gone out of the Congress’s grip in recent years. They have recently joined mainstream development. Kerala has been developing for the last 60 years, since the time of EMS (Namboodiripada), Achyuta Menon and Karunakaran. South India began its social and economic development cycle much ahead of the North.
Both LDF and UDF are accusing each other of making a deal with BJP. How do you view these allegations? Which of the two do you consider as your main rival?
On one level this is ridiculous. I must also thank them for accepting that BJP is the ‘A-team’ as both accuse each other of being the ‘B-team’ of BJP. It is strange for two parties that are in a formal political alliance in every other state to be making this allegation. In Manjeshwaram, SDPI (Social Democratic Party of India) withdrew its candidate on the request of Congress. The Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) have entered into an agreement with each other as well as with the SDPI and Jamaat-e-Islami. The deal alleges it is a desperate attempt to consolidate Muslim votes.
