Rajeev Chandrasekhar, state president of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Kerala, is leading the party to disrupt the duopoly of the Left Democratic Front and the United Democratic Front. He also has his work cut out for him in the Nemom constituency, where he is contesting against incumbent MLA and General Education Minister V Sivankutty of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and former Congress MLA KS Sabarinadhan. In 2016, the BJP opened its account for the first time in the Kerala Assembly when O. Rajagopal won from Nemom. However, after losing the constituency, the BJP returned to zero in 2021. The party is now counting on Mr. Chandrasekhar to recapture Nemom. Excerpts from an interview with The Hindu:
The BJP scored a major breakthrough when it won the Thiruvananthapuram corporation in the 2025 local body elections. However, at the same time, the party had only a 14.76% vote share in the whole of Kerala, compared to nearly 20% in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Are you a little apprehensive ahead of the Parliamentary elections?
Elections to local bodies are not usually fought along party lines. Local opinion polls were a big leap forward for us. We have built almost 22,000 candidates, much more than before. The vote share may conflict with the Lok Sabha elections. But the seats we got covered the entire state. Earlier we were limited to certain pockets around Palakkad and Thiruvananthapuram or Thrissur. One of the regions where we had a big loss of votes compared to the Lok Sabha elections was Thrissur. This had a lot to do with candidate selection and campaign mistakes that saw us go from 40% in the Lok Sabha (polls) to 20% in the local body elections in the district. So if you exclude that one aberration, we did very well.
You are aggressively reaching out to minority communities – both Muslim and Christian. Do you think you can overcome the concerns of these communities, be it the problems faced by Muslims or the attacks on nuns and churches in some BJP-ruled states?
Thirty years of BJP false narratives have been forced on minorities that we are communal and only care about Hindus. During the 2024 Lok Sabha election campaign in Pozhiyoor, Thiruvananthapuram, an old lady told me, “I am ready to support you, but you should tell your people not to burn our churches”. After I became the party president, we made it a point to go out and meet Malayalis across the state to share our vision for development and assure them that we will not harm anyone. When it comes to incidents in the North, neither I nor the BJP can speak for all 140 million Indians or all Hindus. If there are crazy individuals taking the law into their own hands, the laws of those states must be enforced. I gave an assurance that whenever a Malay gets into trouble, you can count on me.
Most of these attacks were allegedly carried out by the Bajrang Dal and Vishva Hindu Parishad, which are part of the larger Sangh Parivar. Do you think their actions are detrimental to BJP’s chances in Kerala?
I can’t speak for them. In Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand, even Congress governments are passing anti-conversion laws because they believe it is a huge threat to tribal communities. Congress MPs from Kerala go to Chhattisgarh to take photos with the nuns, but not a single local Congressman attended. They won’t, because of the dynamics there.
The BJP is positioning itself as an alternative to the LDF and the UDF. The LDF and UDF have criticized the BJP-led Union government for disaster relief funds for Kerala, especially after the 2018 floods or landslide in Wayanad. Do you think these allegations will affect your prospects?
When the government is unable to deliver, they find someone to blame, which is what they are doing against the Centre. They were unable to prove in the Supreme Court that the Center was unfair to the state. When the balance of the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) shows so much money, in which account can the Center give more?
But doesn’t the Center provide special packages when such disasters occur in BJP-ruled states?
This is not a piggy bank where anyone can go to borrow money without responsibility. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, every rupee must be properly accounted for. For example, when disaster strikes in Himachal Pradesh, he will have to provide accounts of where his SDRF money is. Only then can he claim additional charging resources. Kerala government is not ready for this.
On that note, what do you think of the BJP’s concept of a ‘twin-engine government’ at the center and in the state?
In a federal democracy, if you have a state government that has 24×7 hostility towards the Centre, the people of the state will suffer. A twin-engine government means there is agreement on the underlying issues that need to be addressed. When two governments of the same party work together, you have very little room for not implementing policies. In some cases, even if there is no ruling party government at the center, effective cooperation is possible. For example, it worked for the Naveen Patnaik government in Odisha.
But in Odisha too, you have campaigned for a ‘two-engine government’. So does it also mean that you will not benefit if it is not a BJP government in the state?
No. Rather the opposite. A two-engine government relieves the people of the risk of any political conflict standing in the way of their development.
The BJP’s main allegation is that the LDF government has failed the state in all sectors. However, the Union Government’s own agencies like the NITI Aayog have given Kerala high marks in health and education in the last 10 years. The Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) ranking also improved from 28 to 1. How do you explain this discrepancy?
It’s not a contradiction at all. The EoDB metric is not the same as attracting investment or creating jobs. Kerala has the highest unemployment rate in India today. Isn’t that a statistic that affects people more? EoDB is a sample survey targeting businesses already in Kerala, not those outside looking to invest. So, while there is little commercial activity in Kerala, you are only sampling what is already here. Similarly, access to education is high in Kerala. You need to measure the quality of the classrooms, not just the infrastructure. Apart from a few private colleges, there is no practice, no links with industry, no modern laboratories.
You recently attributed Kerala’s low infant mortality rate (IMR) to youth migration, although IMR is calculated as deaths per 1,000 live births, not total births. The LDF compares the IMR with several BJP-ruled states in which the IMR and other metrics still remain very high.
I said there is a Marxist tendency to cherry-pick certain statistics and market them as success. A low IMR is a good thing, but if you care about it and don’t discuss everything around it, then you’re trying to fool people. You also have to talk about youth migration and low birth rates. The comparison with Uttar Pradesh and Bihar is spurious as these states have broken out of the grip of the Congress in recent years. They have only recently entered the mainstream of development. Kerala has been doing development for the last 60 years, since the days of EMS (Namboodiripad), Achutha Menon and Karunakaran. South India started its cycle of social and economic development far before the North.
Both the LDF and the UDF accuse each other of colluding with the BJP. How do you feel about these allegations? Which of the two do you consider to be your main rival?
It’s laughable on one level. I also have to thank them for accepting that BJP is the ‘A-Team’ as they both accuse each other of being the ‘B-Team’ of BJP. It is bizarre for two parties who are in a formal political alliance in every other state to make this claim. In Manjeswaram, the SDPI (Social Democratic Party of India) withdrew its candidate at the request of the Congress. The Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) have an accord with each other, as do the SDPI and the Jamaat-e-Islami. The allegation of a deal is a desperate attempt to consolidate the Muslim vote.
