People in Kerala now believe the BJP and the NDA can win, and the BJP has been successful in shifting the state's political discourse towards development, state party chief Rajeev Chandrasekhar said at NDTV's Keralam Power Play today. The former Union Minister spoke to NDTV's Managing Editor Shiv Aroor weeks ahead of the Kerala Assembly polls, where the BJP is being seen as a small player in a clash of the titans: the CPM-led LDF and the Congress-led UDF.
Asked about what he achieved since he was named Kerala BJP chief last year, Chandrasekhar replied, "I think we have made some significant strides in trying to alter the conventional political landscape of Keralam and the discourse and the narrative that had been thrust on the people by the UDF and the LDF for many decades. The state did not have a reasonable political discourse around development. And I think we have effectively, in the last 10 months, settled this issue once and for all." He said there had been an attempt to push the BJP into a corner in Kerala by painting it as an anti-secularism force. "I believe in the last 12 months, we have set that record straight."
The people of Kerala, Chandrasekhar said, want what the rest of the country is enjoying. "They want their children to have skills, education that puts them in a good position to build their own futures, build their careers, not having to depend on going outside the state for looking for economic opportunity. People want safety. People don't want Jamaat-e-Islami determining the social and political fabric of Kerala," he said, adding that the ruling Left should be given a mirror and asked to introspect about what they did in the last 10 years.
People of Keralam, he said, are scrambling to board the train of development. "These fictional 'I will protect you from communalism' type of arguments have run their course," he said.
When it was pointed out that the BJP's attacks on the Left are likely to benefit the Congress, he replied that discussions on the Congress's track record have also come to the forefront. "The Congress party is not a party that has not governed Keralam. They have governed Kelam for years on end. This is the same Congress party that governed India for 10 years and had 8 ministers from Keralam in their cabinet. So, Rahul Gandhi and the Congress have a belief that people have amnesia, that people forget things that are 10 years old. And it is our job, it is a political responsibility to make sure that people understand." LDF and the UDF, he said, are "joined at the hip". "There's absolutely no difference between the Congress and the CPM, and they are in formal alliance in 27 states and 8 Union Territories for a reason because they're aligned. It is only in Kerala that they do this natakam. Is it easy for 100% of the 3.5 crore Malayalis to get this immediately? No, but we have said we will take this message to every household," he said.
Chandrasekhar was asked what he thinks the BJP can realistically achieve in this election. "I had a very, very strong view upfront that we will 100 per cent alter the political discourse from these controversies to something real. We have already achieved that, and the proof of that today is that both the Congress and the Left, in their own advertising and communication, have started talking about development," he said.
"The second is, we've established and demolished the myth that the BJP-NDA can never win in Kerala. People who wanted to support us, wanted to vote for BJP-NDA, supported Narendra Modiji, kept telling me after I reached that, we think voting for you is a good thing, but it's a waste because you are not viable, you're not a winning coalition... we are now for the first time in the history of Keralam politics, an extremely viable, extremely competitive political formation," he said.
Referring to the BJP's victory in the Thiruvananthapuram civic polls, he said, "People believe that the NDA can win, and this campaign, every place I go, I say we are not contesting to win one seat or 2 seats or 3 seats. We are winning. We are contesting to determine the outcome of the future of Keralam post 2026. I think that is one big change, from pre-25 to now, that people believe that the BJP-NDA can win. We believe that the BJP-NDA can win, and both these work together and create a dynamic of its own," he said.
Countering the Congress's claim of a nexus between the Left and the BJP, he said, "It's a manufactured narrative made in the Rahul Gandhi factory of manufactured narrative that has been going on strongly since 2014. It is the go-to strategy for the Congress. When you have no other idea, you come up with a fabricated lie."
"The way I see it, Pinarayi Vijayan is a very senior leader, is part of the history of Kerala politics, whether you like him or not. But he's certainly going to go down in history as one of the most inept chief ministers that Kerala's ever had. Whether we are decent to each other, whether Prime Minister Narendra Modiji is decent to him, and when he gives him a hand and helps him climb the stairs, that is basically inherent decency that should never be absent from Indian politics. That is something we believe in. We may be political foes. We may be ideological opponents, but that doesn't mean that we cross the line and be indecent, rude, or abusive," he said.
