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HomePoliticsIn Kerala bypoll, BJP takes a beating as ally deserts it

In Kerala bypoll, BJP takes a beating as ally deserts it

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Party, after hyping up its chances, finishes third in Chengannur; vote share drops nearly 7 points since 2016 assembly elections.

Bengaluru: The BJP’s hopes of gaining a foothold in Kerala were dealt another blow by the Chengannur assembly by-election, results of which were declared Thursday. Party candidate P.S. Sreedharan Pillai finished third with 35,270 votes, behind the Congress’s D. Vijayakumar (46,347 votes) and the winner, CPM’s Saji Cherian (67,303 votes).

The BJP had set its sights on Chengannur, after its historic victory in Tripura, hyping up its chances in the bypoll as it looked to make inroads in another Left-ruled state. Instead, the CPM doubled its victory margin in Chengannur, which has a sizeable Hindu vote, in the bypoll that was billed as a referendum on the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government.

What should be worrying for the BJP is that its vote share has slipped to 23.4 per cent from the 29.4 per cent it managed in the constituency in the 2016 assembly elections. And it is the CPM that seems to have benefitted.

While the Congress retained its vote share — 30.9 per cent in 2016 to 30.7 per cent now — the CPM increased its vote share to 44.5 per cent from 36.38 per cent in 2016.

BJP left alone

A number of factors appear to have worked against the party on the ground.

For one, its ally in the state, the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), deserted it before the elections. The BDJS was formed by Vellapally Natesan, the general secretary of the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP), an organisation of the numerically powerful Ezhava community.

Natesan’s BDJS had helped the BJP open its account in Kerala in 2016 — the party won from Nemom in Thiruvananthapuram district — and had been promised “posts” in return. With none of the promises fulfilled, Natesan apparently asked his cadre to back the Left candidate Cherian.

The BJP also wasn’t helped by its decision to appoint party state president Kummanam Rajasekharan as the Governor of Mizoram, a day before polling.

Rajasekharan was heavily involved in the campaigning before he was shifted to the north-eastern state. If sources in the BJP are to be believed, the party spent nearly Rs 5 crore in the assembly bypoll, but to no avail.

Worrying signs for Congress

If there is any solace for the BJP, it is that its loss in vote share appears to have not been transferred to the Congress. The constituency’s Christian voters, who number close to 50,000, seem to have consolidated behind the Left candidate. This should worry the Congress as, traditionally, the state’s Christians have mostly tilted towards the party.

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