The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Thrissur candidate Gopi BJP’S brightest star in Kerala fray
“A UNION Minister for Thrissur, Modi’s guarantee’’. The BJP’S prospects in this seat are built on the promise of actor-politician Suresh Gopi. There is another, more personal slogan the former Rajya Sabha MP has dusted off from his unsuccessful 2019 campaign: “Thrissur njan edukkuva (I am taking t hr iss ur ), enikkuv en om Thrissur (I want Thrissur)”.
Go pi finished third in 2019, behind the Congress and CPI candidates, but got an impressive 2.93 lakh votes. Now, Thrissur is one of the seats in Kerala the BJP is betting on to win, on the strength of Gopi’s popularity, Hindu votes, and its efforts towards wooing Christians, who form 21% of the electorate. The BJP has never won a Lok Sabha seat in Kerala.
Facing Gopi, 65, are Congress veteran km ur ale ed ha ran, the sitting MP from Vadakara, and former CPI minister VS Sunil Kumar.
On April 19 in Mattathur, a Cpi(m)-dominated village, hundreds are waiting for Gopi. A local Bjp leaders ays:“t held fan dudf have real is ed their political base is shaken. Otherwise, why is this crowd waiting for him?”
Ashwin, who identifies himself as a Left sympathiser, is not sure whom he will vote for this time. “We are not against the Left, but the performance of its state government ... People are struggling ,” he says, adding it is difficult to say which party will benefit from this anger.
But fellow villager Jose K says it is not as simple .“here people are divided on CPI(M) and Congress lines... If the BJP comes one day seeking votes, who will go with them? among the christians, very few support the BJP,’’ he says.
The BJP has been at work to woo Christians, particularly Catholics, realising that the Hindu vote alone cannot help it make a breakthrough in Kerala. As part of this, the BJP has been playing into Christian fears regarding growing Islamisation, and “love jihad”. A sign of the community’s support was the decision by some Church platforms
recently to screen The Kerala Story, criticised for blowing up the number of women indoctrinated by the Islamic State.
But even if the BJP still has some distance to go in Thrissur, Go pi has already come along way, with people appreciative of the fact that even after his 2019 defeat, he didn’t desert the constituency. Residents talk of Gopi using his MPLADS funds as a Rajya Sabha MP for projects here.
In fact, after the 2019 elections, when Gopi got 28.2% of the votes in Thrissur, he repeated his performance in the 2021 Assembly polls, finishing third but with 31.3% of the votes.
What is believed to have upset the BJP’S calculations, though, is the last-minute entry of Muraleedharan in the race. The Congress dropped its sitting MP TN Pr at ha pa nina bid to defuse the fallout from his sister Padmaja Venugopal joining the BJP. While Prathapan is an OBC, the Congress hopes the upper caste Hindu vote that was seen as moving to the BJP will now be divided. The Congress is also banking on Muslim votes.
Even the CPI candidate may not be a walkover; Sunil Kumar is a popular face in the area. However, theldf fears an erosion of votes following allegations of embezzlement at a Cpi(m)-controlled cooperative bank. Several party leaders are under the Enforcement Directorate scanner in connection with the case.