KOCHI: In the initial phase of the election campaign, BJP state president K Surendran had set a target of 35 seats for NDA, with which he claimed that the front would form the next government. Surendran’s statement was interpreted by LDF and UDF as an open call for buying MLAs from other fronts as anyone with 35 seats would need at least 36 more for a simple majority. Those who know Surendran’s style of functioning see this as an ambitious target. The party which rules the country and had established its mark in other two red forts in India -- Tripura and West Bengal — badly needs to prove itself in Kerala.
But, its plans have gone awry with a candidate backing out and the nominations of two district-level leaders getting rejected. Senior woman leader Sobha Surendran had to use her connections in New Delhi to get a seat while Sangh Parivar leader R Balashankar returned disappointed despite having hotline connections with BJP national leadership. While BJP boasted about winning more votes in temple towns during the local body elections, it doesn’t even have a candidate for Guruvayur, one of the most important temple towns of the state for the polls. The manifesto of NDA was the last to arrive and there are no path-breaking promises to enthuse voters.
Sources in the BJP state unit said all those are immaterial as the real aim of the party is to win targeted seats where the party has already laid out constituency-specific strategies. If Nemom gave BJP a much-awaited break in 2016, the major challenge on the leadership is to prove that the win in Nemom by O Rajagopal was not a fluke.
Senior BJP leaders secretly admit that the party’s aim is to win three to five seats. They say there are potential seats identified by the leadership and an aggressive last-week campaign can be expected in these seats. Manjeshwar, where K Surendran lost by a narrow margin last time, and Palakkad, where Metroman E Sreedharan tries his luck are the two seats apart from Nemom where BJP hopes to make a win. The inner party issues in CPM which led to delay in finalising candidate in Manjeshwar and the anti-incumbency against Muslim League owing to the financial fraud allegations against incumbent MLA M C Kamaruddin brighten the hopes of Surendran. Being the neighbouring constituency of Karnataka, resources from across the border are flowing freely to Manjeshwar.
In Palakkad, the appeal of E Sreedharan among voters of all political beliefs has created the ground for a tough fight against incumbent Congress MLA Shafi Parambil. BJP leadership hopes to win Brahmin votes which had been a fixed deposit for Congress ever since the days of former MLA C M Sundaram.
Malampuzha, Tripunithura and Kazhakoottam are the other seats where BJP has performed well in the first weeks of the campaign. While candidate Krishnakumar is popular in Malampuzha and finished second behind CPM veteran V S Achuthanandan last time, the profile of candidate K S Radhakrishnan has come to the party’s advantage in Tripunithura. A gifted writer, orator, teacher, former VC and ex-PSC chairman, Radhakrishnan has grown to the current stature from a poor Dheevara family. The seat has a considerable number of Dheevara votes and the BJP is aiming for consolidating upper caste and Dheevara votes.
In Kazhakoottam, Sobha Surendran has already electrified cadre through her energetic and personal campaign style. BJP’s strategy is to capitalise on the Sabarimala issue here as the main opponent is Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran. There are efforts by Sobha and other senior BJP leaders to keep the issue alive during campaign and they plan to consolidate votes of believers to teach the devaswom minister a lesson. The strong presence of minorities in the constituency is the major hurdle for the party’s plan here.