Are The Stories Of The BJP’s Rise In Kerala Real, Or Perceived?

There is an unmistakable link in Kerala between Assembly election outcomes and the local body elections held roughly three months earlier. Unsurprisingly, when the results of the 2025 local self-government (LSG) elections were announced, the state’s major political fronts quickly moved to shape the narrative. Success, they argued, was historically grounded and socially resonant; setbacks, they insisted, were marginal aberrations with little bearing on larger electoral trends.

Both the Congress-led UDF and the CPM-led LDF engaged in this exercise soon after the results were out. The BJP, however, projected its victory in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation as a decisive marker of political change—one that signals a breach in Kerala’s long-standing resistance to the party.

Does Kerala Result Show BJP Consolidation in the State?

While both the Congress and the CPM concede that the BJP’s win in the capital city is significant, they are equally keen to frame it as limited and lacking wider political depth. Yet, beyond this competitive rhetoric lies a more consequential question: what does this result reveal about the BJP’s consolidation in Kerala—especially in what has long been seen as the last major red citadel in the country?

Traditionally, the BJP’s pockets of strength in Kerala have been limited to the northern belt bordering Karnataka and the capital city of Thiruvananthapuram. As early as 1984—when the BJP contested its first Lok Sabha election and was reduced to just two seats nationally in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s assassination and the sympathy wave that followed—the party made a surprising mark in Kerala. In Thiruvananthapuram, a Hindu Front candidate backed by the BJP polled more than one lakh votes, stunning many political observers.

A similar pattern was observed in the northernmost constituency, Manjeswaram, which borders Karnataka. There, the BJP repeatedly came close to victory but lost “between the lip and the cup”, outcomes often attributed to the CPI(M) 's tactical voting aimed at defeating what it described as communal forces.

For decades, the BJP’s trajectory in Kerala remained essentially unchanged—marked by isolated pockets of influence but an inability to translate them into decisive electoral breakthroughs—until roughly a decade ago.

Gradual But Steady Growth In BJP’s Vote Share

Political observers have long noted the BJP’s gradual yet steady growth in vote share in Kerala over the past decades. This rise has been most visible in parliamentary elections, often mirroring the party’s national dominance. Assembly elections, however, have told a more restrained story even after 2014.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the BJP secured 10.33 per cent of the vote in Kerala (10.82 per cent for the NDA). The number rose modestly to 13 per cent in 2019 (15.64 per cent for the NDA). The 2024 parliamentary election, however, marked a sharper surge, with the BJP’s vote share climbing to 16.68 per cent (NDA: 19.24 per cent).

This parliamentary rise has not translated into a proportional increase in Assembly election results. The party, which polled 13 per cent of the vote in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, managed only 11.30 per cent in the subsequent Assembly election (12.41 per cent for the NDA).

“The BJP has been trying to break the bipolarity of Kerala’s politics. While consolidation is clearly underway, the change has been slow,” says Dr Gopakumar, political scientist and former Vice-Chancellor of the Central University of Kerala. “The victory in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation and the party’s expanding influence across several regions could prove significant. There is a marked shift in political allegiance among sections of the upper middle class and the middle class towards the BJP, particularly in parliamentary elections. If the party can replicate this trend in the next Assembly elections and convert vote share into seats, it could mark a decisive rupture in the state’s long-standing bipolar political system.”

Though the BJP fell just one seat short of a simple majority in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, its performance elsewhere was far less consistent. In Palakkad Municipality, which it had ruled for a decade, the party fell well short of the majority mark, and it also lost Pandalam Municipality, which it had won in 2020.

According to State Election Commission data, the NDA won 1,919 wards in 2025—a modest increase from 1,597 in 2020. The alliance secured majorities in 26 village panchayats, up from 19 in the previous election. However, in the more consequential district panchayats, the BJP won just one division.

Although the State Election Commission is yet to release the official vote-share figures for each front, data compiled by Asianet News places the BJP’s vote share at around 16 per cent. While the party won the prestigious Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, its overall vote share appears to have dipped to this level, well below the 25 per cent figure repeatedly claimed by BJP leaders during the campaign.

Nevertheless, the BJP managed to expand its presence in several Left strongholds. A striking example is the Kozhikode Municipal Corporation, which the Left has governed for decades. This time, the LDF scraped through with a narrow victory over a spirited UDF challenge. Equally notable, however, was the BJP’s performance: its seat tally rose to 13 from seven in 2020.

The Hindu-Muslim Factor

Kozhikode has a substantial Muslim population, and the result underscores two parallel trends—the consolidation of Muslim votes in favour of the UDF, and a shift of Hindu votes towards the BJP. “The Left’s strategic attempt to wean away Hindu votes by positioning itself as a strong critic of what it perceived as Islamic extremism has, in effect, benefited the BJP in certain areas,” says Dr Gopakumar.

At the same time, the BJP’s inability to make significant inroads in Thrissur and other parts of central Kerala, analysts argue, points to its failure to consolidate Christian voters. The advantage the saffron party appeared to enjoy during the Lok Sabha elections has not carried over. Given that the BJP won its first-ever Lok Sabha seat from Thrissur in 2024, a constituency where Christians account for roughly a quarter of the electorate, this is particularly significant.

Although the BJP has failed to sustain its 2024 parliamentary vote share, the widening spread of its influence across Kerala is difficult to ignore. The CPI(M)’s efforts to retain its Hindu base—sometimes through tacit endorsement of Islamophobic remarks by community leaders such as Vellappally Natesan—have had unintended consequences. They have consolidated Muslim votes behind the UDF, while simultaneously enabling the BJP to sharpen and amplify its anti-Muslim narrative.

“The Hindu Right is advancing through pathways indirectly created by a stagnant and confused Left,” observes Kamalram Sajeev, author and editor of the webzine True Copy Think. “The parliamentary Left has been torn between appeasing the Hindu majority and the Muslim minority. In the process, Islamophobic intellectuals aligned with the CPI(M) have targeted Muslim organisations, including the Muslim League, which has historically stood for secularism.”

The CPI(M) does not view the local body election results as a verdict on anti-incumbency. Party leaders, however, appear relieved that the setback suffered in the 2024 parliamentary elections is showing signs of reversal. For the Congress, the results suggest that its traditional vote banks have essentially returned to the UDF fold.

A Victory for All to See?

For the BJP, despite its widely publicised victory in Thiruvananthapuram, the challenge remains substantial. Its attempts to draw in sections of Christian voters have not yielded the same dividends as in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Yet, the BJP’s breakthrough in Thiruvananthapuram and the UDF’s broad-based success across different tiers of local self-government together signal an intriguing churn in Kerala’s political landscape ahead of the Assembly polls. How the CPI(M) recalibrates its strategy in response to these shifts will add another layer of complexity, making the road to the next Assembly election far more contested—and unpredictable—than before.