Still struggling for a base, why BJP says it'll eventually take power in Kerala
The BJP’s inability to turn its growing political presence in parts of South India into a durable electoral base in Kerala was the central question for the party’s state vice-president Dr K.S. Radhakrishnan at the India Today Conclave South in Kochi on September 30.
Taking part in the session ‘Faith versus Politics in the South’, Radhakrishnan rejected the idea that Kerala’s resistance to the BJP could simply be explained by people’s suspicion over the party or the state’s strong Leftist tradition. Instead, he argued, Kerala’s political history had been shaped by a “false narrative” of liberal, Left and secular politics.
Radhakrishnan offered a distinctly different reading of Kerala’s political evolution, saying that the early Communist movement drew support from sections of the Hindu society and that the state’s subsequent secular image obscured those social and political roots.
The 1957 Kerala legislative assembly election was central to this argument. The Communist Party of India (CPI) won 60 seats and, with the support of Independents, formed the first elected Communist government in Kerala under E.M.S. Namboodiripad. Radhakrishnan said this history helped create a political space in which the BJP later found it difficult to establish itself.
Radhakrishnan acknowledged that the challenge for the BJP now went beyond the Left. He pointed to the consolidation of Muslim and Christian voters behind the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) as another reason for the party’s limited electoral reach.The BJP has made repeated efforts to woo Christian communities in Kerala, including through its Snehayathra outreach programme. Radhakrishnan conceded that the party was nevertheless struggling to translate that engagement into votes.
The conversation then turned to one of the BJP’s politically most significant issues in Kerala: faith and the Sabarimala temple. The issue had become a major flashpoint after the Supreme Court’s 2018 verdict allowing entry of women of all ages into the temple, followed by a prolonged BJP-led agitation.
Radhakrishnan said the party’s position on Sabarimala should be understood primarily as a matter of religious freedom rather than an electoral strategy. He also defended the BJP’s opposition to what it describes as forced religious conversions while acknowledging the contribution of Christian institutions to education in Kerala. He, however, saw no contradiction in Kerala families sending their children to Christian-run schools.
Radhakrishnan pushed back against the description of the BJP as a reactionary political force in a state shaped by social reformers such as Sree Narayana Guru and Chattampi Swamikal. Both figures were associated with movements challenging caste hierarchies and social discrimination.
Radhakrishnan ended on a confident note, predicting that the BJP would eventually come to power in Kerala. The BJP has already made a historic breakthrough in the state: Suresh Gopi’s 2024 Thrissur election victory gave the party its first Lok Sabha seat in Kerala while its statewide vote share also rose significantly.
SESSION HIGHLIGHTS | Dr K.S. Radhakrishnan
