Chennai: First electoral victory in a parliamentary poll from Thrissur, a neck-and-neck battle in Thiruvananthapuram and a significant jump in vote share in Alappuzha and Attingal — the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has multiple reasons to be happy about its Kerala performance in this Lok Sabha elections, despite facing setbacks in the Hindi heartlands.
The party, which contested 16 seats this time, saw its vote share rise to 16.68 percent, up from 13 percent in 2019 when it contested in 15 seats, according to the Election Commission (EC) data.
Notably, the BJP garnered the most votes in 11 assembly constituencies — five in Thiruvananthapuram (Nemom, Kazhakkoottam, Vattiyurkavu, Attingal, and Kattakkada) and six in Thrissur (Thrissur, Ollur, Natika, Irinjalakkuda, Puthukad, and Manalur).
This surge has impacted both the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala. While the Congress-led UDF repeated its 2019 victory by winning 18 of the 20 seats, its vote share decreased to 35.06 percent this year from 37.64 percent in 2019. Similarly, the vote share of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) slipped marginally to 25.82 percent from 25.97 percent in 2019.
P.J. Vincent, a political analyst and head of the Postgraduate Department of History at Government Arts & Science College, Kozhikode, said: “There is a visible shift from bipolar to a tripolar polity one in Kerala.”
He added that while part of Suresh Gopi’s Thrissur victory can be attributed to his influence as an actor-philanthropist, a lot of the votes were political too, which is visible in the rise of the BJP’s vote share in many other constituencies.
For the BJP, “this is a significant milestone in Kerala’s history”, said Vincent.
K.S. Radhakrishnan, the party’s state vice-president, told ThePrint that both fronts (LDF and UDF) said the lotus would never bloom in Kerala and the BJP would be wiped out. “But our vote share is nearing 20 percent.”
Attributing the results to the Modi factor, the hard work of the party cadres and the candidates’ influence, Radhakrishnan said the party has already started preparing for the 2025 local body and 2026 assembly elections.
Performance in key constituencies
According to EC data, the BJP improved its vote share in four out of five key constituencies — Thrissur, Thiruvananthapuram, Attingal, Pathanamthitta and Palakkad — compared to 2019. Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally campaigned in these areas.
In Thrissur, Suresh Gopi’s vote share increased to 37.80 percent this year from 28.19 percent in 2019. Gopi secured a victory with a margin of over 70,000 votes.
The Congress suffered a significant loss as its vote share in the seat dropped to 30.08 percent this year from 39.83 percent in 2019. While in 2019 the Congress candidate T.N. Prathapan won the seat with over 4 lakh votes, this year, the party’s candidate K. Muraleedharan finished third, receiving 3,28,124 votes.
Meanwhile, the LDF’s V. S. Sunil Kumar increased the party’s votes in the Thrissur seat marginally to 3.37 lakh from 3.21 lakh secured in 2019.
In Thiruvananthapuram, where the BJP finished second after a close race, Rajeev Chandrasekhar raised the party’s vote share to 35.5 percent this year from 31.30 percent in 2019.
Here too, winning Congress candidate Shashi Tharoor’s vote share, which was 41.19 percent in 2019, dipped to 37.19 percent. However, the LDF’s votes saw a small increase to 25.72 percent from 25.60 percent in 2019.
In Attingal, BJP’s V. Muraleedharan’s vote share rose to 31.64 percent from 24.97 percent, while UDF candidate Adoor Prakash’s vote share fell to 33.29 percent from 38.34 percent, and LDF’s decreased to 33.22 percent from 34.50 percent in 2019.
In Palakkad, the BJP’s vote share in five years increased to 24.31 percent from 21.44 percent, while the Congress saw a marginal increase to 40.66 percent from 39.17 percent. The CPI(M)’s vote share, however, reduced to 33.39 percent from 38.03 percent in 2019.
Apart from these constituencies, in the Alappuzha seat where the BJP fielded Sobha Surendran this year, the party increased its vote share to 28.3 percent from 17.24 percent secured in 2019. Though the BJP finished third, it gave a major shock to the CPI(M), which considers Alappuzha a stronghold.
Though the Congress, which fielded All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary K.C. Venugopal, won the Alappuzha seat, the party suffered a loss of nearly two percent vote share to 38.2 percent from 40 in 2019.
Meanwhile, the vote share of LDF’s Alappuzha candidate A.M. Ariff in the last five years also dwindled to 32.2 percent from 40.96 percent.
Besides these, the BJP has recorded a nearly five percent increase in vote share in Kannur and a nearly 4 percent increase in the Kasargode constituencies.
However, the BJP underperformed in Pathanamthitta, where it fielded Anil Antony, son of Congress veteran A.K. Antony. A former Congress functionary, Anil joined the BJP in April 2023, two months after he quit the Congress.
The BJP candidate secured a vote share of 25.49 percent, while sitting UDF MP Anto Antony, who won, increased his vote share to 39.98 percent from 37.11 percent in 2019, and LDF’s Thomas Isaac secured a vote share of 32.79 percent.
According to N. Haridasan, the BJP’s Kannur district president, the party made consistent efforts in all the constituencies. “While Suresh Gopi was a constant presence in Thrissur, reacting to local issues, Muraleedharan, too, had begun his works in Attingal five to six months before to Lok Sabha elections,” he told ThePrint.
Talking about the Pathanamthitta seat, BJP’s Radhakrishnan told ThePrint that the party candidate had a clean image, but a consolidation of minority votes in favour of the UDF resulted in its victory.
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LDF’s failed strategy
The BJP’s growth is not just an overnight incident, as the party was consistently increasing its vote share in every election, highlighted Joseph C. Mathew, a political analyst based in Kerala.
He added that unless secular parties like the UDF or the LDF engage in political education, the BJP would grow further in the state. According to him, the Left parties’ election strategy also faced a setback in the state, resulting in the current result.
Meanwhile, political analyst Vincent pointed out that the Left parties’ election strategy faced setbacks due to their focus on issues like the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and minority protection, without addressing secularism and democracy effectively.
“Left should rethink its campaign. Minorities in Kerala are not like those in the north or northeast. They are powerful politically, culturally and economically. So, instead of talking about protecting them, the Left should have talked about protecting secularism, democracy and Modi’s fascist rule,” Vincent said, adding that there was strong anti-incumbency in the state.
According to him, currently, the Congress also lacks strong leaders in the state.
Moreover, the analyst highlighted that the tilt in Christian voters towards the BJP favoured the party in the state.
Notably, in the lead-up to the elections, two dioceses of the Syro-Malabar Church in Kerala chose to exhibit the contentious film The Kerala Story to raise awareness about “forced religious conversions”. This decision sparked controversy.
Subsequently, St. Joseph’s Syro-Malabar Church in Sanjopuram, Vypin, opted to screen its students a documentary titled The Cry of the Oppressed, which focuses on ethnic conflicts in Manipur.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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