Notwithstanding that near miss, this time the BJP is counting on its steady rise in vote share in the region, which has outpaced its growth in Kerala as a whole.
The BJP is pinning its hopes on Krishnakumar, a former photostat shop owner who stunned the CPI(M) in 2000 when he won a local election from Palakkad’s Thonipalayam ward, where the Marxist party had its district committee office. Krishnakumar later shifted to other wards but the BJP has never lost that segment in the elections since then.
The Congress is also fighting to hold on to the seat, which fell vacant after its former MLA, Shafi Parambil, was elected to the Lok Sabha this year. The party has gained some momentum towards the end of the campaign, when the BJP’s young face, Sandeep Varier, switched over to the Congress.
Varier, who harboured hopes of getting the BJP ticket over Krishnakumar, has emerged as a prize catch in an election where the CPI (M) candidate himself is a Congress defector.
“I have nothing to say on it except the fact that Varier won’t take away BJP votes with him,” said BJP veteran Narayanan Namboothiri.
The Congress is hoping Parambil’s personal popularity will draw votes for the party’s candidate, Mamkootathil. Parambil has been accompanying Mamkootathil everywhere in the campaign.
The BJP has been working hard in the Brahmin-dominated settlements, or Agraharams, which had taken a shine to Parambil.
“The media went to town saying how I had batted for Rahul’s candidature. For a moment, let’s assume I did. Then my intention would have been to get a candidate who would follow my instructions to the fullest to ensure my personal votes transferred to the next candidate,” said Parambil.
He added: “I have no reason to believe that Rahul would poll less than me in Kalpathy.”
But the BJP is unfazed. If anything, Namboothiri says some of the Parambil’s “personal” votes will switch to the BJP this time around.
The CPI (M) is also putting up a spirited campaign, backing Congress defector P. Sarin, who is on the ballot as an independent candidate.
Although the party’s chances of winning have been dampened due to its marginalisation in the Palakkad municipality areas, it is banking on Sarin’s personal appeal as a professional to draw votes from the urban constituency.
“P. Sarin is our trump card,” said Minister for Local Self-Governments and Excise M.B. Rajesh.
Sarin has the complete backing of the party, although there are some fears about vote erosion on account of the absence of the CPI (M)’s hammer-and-sickle from the ballot box.
But Sarin believes he is winning. “In Vattiyoorkkavu in 2016, the CPI(M) came third but managed to wrest the seat in the bypoll, so anything is possible,” he said.
CPI(M) district secretary E.N. Suresh Babu is also confident Sarin will win Palakkad. “I come from Chittur in the district where we ended the 70-year-old Congress dominance in that municipality in 2020 by propping up ‘independent’ candidates on the ‘umbrella’ symbol. I am confident of repeating the feat in Palakkad,” he said.
Despite Babu’s confidence, a veteran leader at the LDF election committee office confided to ThePrint, “Honestly speaking, we are fighting to come second.”
But wouldn’t that mean a BJP win?
“That’s not our headache. We are only bothered about polling all our votes and finishing respectably,” he added.
While the BJP has a definite edge in the Palakkad municipality area, the Congress is again pinning its hopes on the panchayats of Pirayiri and Mathoor.
However, there is unlikely to be any cross-voting by CPI(M) supporters this time around from the party’s stronghold of Kannadi in the assembly constituency.
“In 2021, the CPI(M) cross-voted in favour of the Congress as a BJP victory in a Hindu-majority seat in Palakkad would have impacted its prospects in other seats,” said veteran journalist George Podipara, former bureau chief of Mathrubhumi daily in Palakkad.
“The CPI(M) is the de facto Hindu party of Kerala. The BJP winning such a seat would convert Hindu vote banks of the CPI (M) into BJP supporters overnight.”
Prequel: The 2021 Palakkad election
Part of the BJP’s confidence stems from how closely it lost the last election to the Congress.
When the BJP fielded E. Sreedharan from Palakkad in 2021, he was tipped to be the winning horse. Sreedharan even opened an ‘MLA office’ in the middle of the campaign with the firm belief that he would go on to win. State BJP treasurer E. Krishnadas says the public response to his candidature was overwhelming.
Sreedharan was contesting against Parambil, the sitting Congress MLA and Youth Congress (YC) state president, who enjoyed a cult following of his own.
Parambil, now the Vadakara MP, recalls how he had nearly given up hope of winning during that campaign. The BJP’s political base had been steadily growing in the constituency and Sreedharan’s candidature was expected to swing many neutral and non-political voters its way.
Come counting day, Sreedharan initially led by over 10,000 votes after the municipality areas were covered.
But then something unexpected happened. Parambil came in from behind and won the seat by over 3,000 votes after counting took place in the CPI (M) stronghold of Kannadi panchayat. The Left candidate, C.P. Pramod, ended up a distant third.
The BJP alleged cross-voting by Left cadres in favour of the Congress while Sreedharan bid adieu to electoral politics, citing advanced age.
“As always, the Congress and the Left ganged up to deny the BJP,” BJP state vice president Sobha Surendran told ThePrint.
For sure, in Palakkad’s municipality areas, the BJP’s vote is political or for the party and not merely based on individual candidates, as new faces have managed to retain the seats vacated by fellow councillors from the party.
BJP’s base in Palakkad
According to multiple sources ThePrint spoke to, the BJP’s base in Palakkad comprises the Moothan community, who originally migrated to Palakkad from the Kongu belt of Tamil Nadu.
The Moothans of Palakkad are traders and own a lot of the business establishments in town. An entire area of around 10 municipal wards is referred to as ‘Moothan Thara’.
“The Moothan community is not seen outside of Palakkad and has since the 1960s stood with the Jana Sangh,” said V.C. Kabeer, a former MLA and minister from the district who has written books on Palakkad’s history.
The Moothans and allied castes—Tharakans, Gupthans and Mannadiyars—lie scattered across the Palakkad district, although they make up a sizeable number in the Palakkad assembly constituency.
State BJP treasurer Krishnadas recalls that in his childhood the Jana Sangh was referred to as “Moothanmarude party” (party of Moothans), much like its image as a party of Banias or traders in the Hindi heartland.
It’s when the BJP managed to get the additional Nair votes and some percentage of the Brahmin votes—who also make up a sizeable segment in the Palakkad assembly constituency—that it stood a chance to win, according to Krishnadas.
Krishnadas, 50, has a flourishing practice as a lawyer, served as the party’s district president from 2015 to 2021 for two terms, and is among the urbane faces of the party today.
At the other end of the spectrum is N. Sivarajan, who hails from the Tharakan sub-caste of the Moothan community. Sivarajan, a councillor from Palakkad for 37 years running, has more of an affinity towards the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) than the BJP, and calls himself “old-school”.
“I am one of the few remaining Kerala BJP leaders to attend the party’s inaugural conference in Bombay,” recalled Sivarajan, who has previously worked with both the Left and the Congress, in the 1977 and 1980 elections.
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Palakkad’s long tryst with RSS and Jana Sangh
The BJP’s rise in Palakkad isn’t an overnight phenomenon. Its growth in the constituency has been organic.
According to Sivarajan, Palakkad has had a long tryst with the RSS, and the Jana Sangh was a force to reckon with in the city as far back as 50 years ago.
“It was just a few hundred metres from my home (Mettu Theruvu) that the first shakha of the RSS was founded in 1942 by Guruji (RSS leader M.S. Golwalkar) when he came here,” Sivarajan said.
“From the very beginning in 1952, the Jana Sangh had representation in the Palakkad municipal council elections, and from 1968 to 1979, the Jans Sangh had ruled the Palakkad municipality, which is seldom remembered now.”
On the heels of the success in the 1969 municipal elections, the Jana Sangh’s O. Rajagopal—who comes from the district—emerged a close third in the 1970 Assembly elections in Palakkad.
He won 27.42 percent of the votes, raising his vote share from the 1967 election by 17 percent and 20 percent from 1965. Rajagopal would have to wait 51 years after his first attempt to finally enter the Kerala assembly in 2016 after contesting over a dozen elections.
According to Sivarajan, Rajagopal was a kesilla vakeel, or unsuccessful lawyer, who had to seek donations to raise the Rs 250 needed for the deposit in 1970. The deposit is Rs 10,000 today.
Retired civil servant and author D. Babu Paul, who was Palakkad district magistrate then, recalls that Rajagopal had put up provocative posters in the 1970 election, which the Congress and Left candidates objected to.
In the 1977 election, well-known socialist stalwart C.M. Sundaram—who shifted base from Bombay to his home turf in Palakkad’s Kalpathy—began a winning streak that lasted five terms, and this put a spoke in the Jana Sangh’s and the BJP’s growth in the city.
Sundaram first entered the Kerala assembly in 1977 representing the Praja Socialist Party (PSP) from Palakkad constituency. He joined the Congress in 1990. The PSP was an ally of the Congress-led United Democratic Front in Kerala since 1960 and almost ceased to exist by 1990.
His legacy still endures and a section of Tamil Brahmins living in the Agraharams in Kalpathy, Sekharipuram and elsewhere continue voting for the Congress to this day.
When Jana Sangh ruled Palakkad with IUML
Sivarajan recalled how the Jana Sangh and the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) came together to rule the Palakkad municipality from 1968 to 1979, perhaps reminiscent of the Hindu Mahasabha-Muslim League alliance in the Sindh and Northwest Frontier Provinces in the early 1940s.
“The Jana Sangh’s Laxminarayana Aiyar served as the chairperson of the then 28-member council with P. Ahmed Ibrahim of the IUML as the vice-chairperson. The lone standing committee chairperson was the IUML’s K.B. Khalid. The Jana Sangh had seven members and the IUML six, and there were other Independents,” he said.
Following the formation of the BJP in 1980, the nascent party struggled to maintain the same level of influence in the Palakkad municipality. This was evident when Rajagopal lost to Sundaram, once again forfeiting his deposit in his fourth contest in Palakkad.
It was, in many ways, the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and the death of Sirajunnisa, an 11-year-old girl who was shot dead by the Kerala Police during the Ayodhya movement, that once again set the party on course to assert itself in Palakkad.
Violence erupted when the then BJP president Murli Manohar Joshi’s Ekta Yatra rolled in in 1991, leading to the police excesses. Tensions were high between the two communities through the 1990s, remember residents of Pudupalli Theruvu, the site of the firing.
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BJP’s revival in Palakkad
The BJP’s fortunes turned in a local election in 2000 when Krishnakumar—then a young man running a photostat shop who only had a bicycle to commute—stunned the CPI (M) by winning from the Thonipalayam ward.
By 2005, the BJP was back to being a force to reckon with in the Palakkad municipality after emerging as the single largest party, winning 17 out of the 50 seats and going on to rule the municipality for six months, before the Left and the Congress combined to oust the party.
Rajagopal was back in Palakkad in 2006 to try his luck yet again in the assembly but ended up third with a 25 percent vote share in his fifth (and final) contest from the seat.
After a brief lull, the 2014 Lok Sabha elections saw the BJP making its mark again through Sobha Surendran, who came third with 15 percent of the vote.
The party won the largest number of seats in the 2015 municipal elections, winning 24 of 52 seats, and managed to complete a full term on its own for the first time. It continues to rule after improving its tally further in 2020.
Sobha Surendran also finished second in the assembly elections that followed in 2016, relegating four-term CPI (M) Palakkad MP N.N. Krishnadas to the third position. This pattern repeated in the 2021 elections, when Sreedharan was a close second.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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