NEW DELHI: Days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi predicted BJP’s rise in Kerala, along similar lines as in minority-dominated Nagaland, Meghalaya and Goa where the party is in power, the BJP on Tuesday celebrated its first big break in the state an influential Christian leader’s promise of a Lok Sabha seat for the saffron party and his declaration that the BJP was not untouchable for the church.
While the Roman Catholic Church, Thalassery’s archbishop Joseph Pamplany’s Sunday statements at a meeting of farmers had the BJP hailing his stance, ruling Left and opposition Congress in Kerala questioned the leader over “rising attacks on churches.”
The BJP hit back saying the Left and Congress had always treated minorities as vote banks and trolled them for speaking freely.
“Don’t the Bishops have freedom of expression? The Archbishop is being attacked for speaking in favour of the BJP. Earlier, the Bishop of Pala was ridiculed for flagging the dangers of Narcotic Jihad and its impact on Christians. The CPM and Congress say they are for the minorities and freedom of speech, but when a Christian bishop’s speech indirectly favours the government, they pounce upon him,” Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan said on Tuesday hailing Pamplany.
The BJP said churches were also being attacked in Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh.
Top Kerala BJP leaders on Tuesday termed Pamplany’s remarks as a potential turning point in the state that had never elected a BJP Lok Sabha MP.
Mulareedharan said Christians have been overwhelmingly backing PM Narendra Modi’s politics of development. Recent instances of BJP’s acceptance among Christians have been in Meghalaya with over 75 per cent Christians, Nagaland with over 80 pe cent Christians and Goa with around 25 per cent Christians.
The BJP is now readying an aggressive strategy in Kerala with both the party and its ideological mentor RSS expanding their outreach to the minorities. So far, Karnataka has been the only southern state where the BJP has been in power.
The party says even in the northeast it formed the first government only in 2016.
Kerala, however, remains a tough nut to crack for the BJP. In the 2021 assembly polls, the party did not win a single seat but marginally improved its vote share from 10.53 per cent in 2016 to 11.30 per cent in 2021. In 2016, BJP’s O Rajagopal had won from Nemom but in 2021 BJP’s Kummanam Rajasekharan had lost to a CPM candidate.
PM’s announcement on March 2, the day BJP won Nagaland, and Tripura, that Kerala would be the next state to vote BJP and allies to power, was a cue to the party to go all out in Kerala which returned the maximum Congress MPs to Lok Sabha in 2019 — 15 out of 20 state seats, including Rahul Gandhi from Wayanad.
Kerala is key to BJP’s two principal political urges Congress free India and pan India BJP.