KOCHI: With a technocrat at the helm of affairs, the BJP is banking on professionalism and development to upset the decades-old bipolar politics in Kerala.
Understanding the pivotal role of panchayats in expanding its support base at the grassroots level, the party has been persevering for the past six months -- reorganising booth-level committees, forming election-management committees at ward level and preparing panchayat-specific development agenda.
Besides, its cadre has been actively enroling new voters, an exercise done by only the CPM in the past. The party has added around 8 lakh new voters over the past few months.
The BJP studied long-pending projects and explored central initiatives that can be utilised in each local body. Based on the effort, a development agenda has been prepared that will be presented before voters along with the party manifesto. The projects proposed for corporations such as Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram have been sent to a Mumbai-based agency to be repackaged in a professional manner.
“We have prepared development plans for each local body diligently by identifying projects and discussing with local leaders and professionals. Our teams will visit houses and expose the long forgotten projects and the possibilities of unexplored central projects.
There has been a shift in the outlook of voters and we believe this will lead to change,” BJP state general secretary Anoop Antony said.
Among the six corporations, the BJP is focusing on Thiruvananthapuram and Thrissur. In the capital, the party topped the vote count in 71 corporation ward segments in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. In the Thrissur assembly constituency, Suresh Gopi posted a 14,117 vote advantage over his nearest rival. In Ollur, Suresh Gopi led by 10,000 votes. The BJP believes the last Lok Sabha election has transformed the election scenario, that will allow the party to post major gains in the local-body polls.
The BJP is expecting discontent among Hindu voters over the Sabarimala gold theft to work in its favour in the south. In the central districts, the party is banking on its appeasement of the Christian community.