ANALYSIS. Beef, disoriented campaign halt BJP charge in Kerala local-body polls

Against the backdrop of the party’s massive setback in the Bihar Assembly elections, the BJP is finding some solace in its good showing in Kerala’s local-body elections, the results of which came out on Saturday.

In a State where the polity is divided between the Congress-led United Democratic Front and CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front, and nearly half the population is made up of Muslims and Christians, the BJP and Hindutva politics had always been in no-man’s land.

But, in the three-tier local-body elections, the party is said to have ‘arrived’ politically securing about six per cent of all seats at stake. The BJP has trebled its share of seats — in gram panchayats, municipalities, city corporations, block panchayats and district panchayats — from 480 in 2010 to 1,244 this time.

It came second in the Thiruvananthapuram city corporation, pushing the UDF to third. In the Palakkad municipality, it became the largest single party, losing the municipal rule by a few seats.

In what is billed as the semi-final match to the Assembly elections, the LDF won convincingly a majority of the seats. Of the 941 gram panchayats at stake, the LDF won 551 against the ruling Congress-led United Democratic Front’s 362. The BJP’s share was 14 panchayats. This victory been hailed as a ‘huge achievement’ for the BJP. However, the party has not performed as well as expected. The trebling of seats could only be viewed as arithmetical progression, not as a geometrical.

The BJP had started preparations for local-body elections soon after Amit Shah took over as president. Shah had wanted the party to make a turnaround in its fortunes through the elections, by hook or crook.

Several top-rung Parivar leaders had visited the State inspiring the party to wrest the electoral moment. The Hindu upper-middle class and the upper castes have been rapidly moving towards the party too.

The offer of support by the influential SNDP, the main out of the backward Ezhava caste, was a windfall for the party.

However, four things kept the BJP from harvesting a bumper crop.

First, the crucial Bihar elections totally diverted the attention of the party’s central leadership from Kerala, leaving the ill-equipped Kerala leaders to fend for itself mid-stream.

Second, by failing to go in a formal tie-up with the SNDP, the BJP failed to cash in on the Ezhava vote bank. The results show that majority of the Ezhava votes remained where were — with the LDF.

Third, infighting in the BJP State leadership left the campaign disoriented.

Fourth, and the most important, the controversies over beef — the killings, the ‘beef raid’ on Kerala House in Delhi, the beef ban at a Hindu-run college at Thrissur etc — badly hurt the BJP’s image. In a beef-eating State, the controversies prevented the party from fully exploiting its electoral potential. Beef is widely consumed in Kerala not just by Muslims and Christians but a substantial section of Hindus, including upper castes.

‘Beef’ turned out to be a symbol of intolerance and invasion on ordinary people’s fundamental rights. It encouraged a consolidation of the minority communities against the party.

It also raised fears of backward castes, including Ezhavas, who always suspected the BJP to be a party of Nairs and upper castes. The LDF campaign, led by VS Achuthanandan, effectively made use of the controversies.

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