BJP State president Rajeev Chandrasekhar joins party workers as they celebrate his election victory from the Nemom Assembly segment at the BJP State headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday.
| Photo Credit: NIRMAL HARINDRAN
Back in 2016, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made its historic entry into the Kerala Assembly with a win in Nemom, it was expected to propel the party’s expansion in the State. However, five years later, the party found itself reduced again to zero seats in the 140-member House. The setback forced it to go back to the drawing board to reorient its strategies to gain a foothold in a State which has remained mostly averse to its brand of saffron politics.
In the intervening years, it secured its first Lok Sabha seat and a historic win in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation. The momentum that the party built over the past two years appears to have kept the BJP in good stead as it secured three seats when the results of the Assembly elections were declared on Monday. Though its vote share hovered around 11%, much lesser than what it secured in previous elections, the political import of the three seats that it won, in a State which had remained almost impervious to it, was not lost on anyone. The party has made a significant step towards making a dent in the Left democratic Front (LDF)-United Democratic Front (UDF) duopoly which has dominated the State.
Published – May 04, 2026 08:37 pm IST
