Ground report: How BJP made Ezhava voters sway right in Left bastion of Alappuzha

In the recently concluded general elections, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Kerala was rattled by the shift in Ezhava votes in multiple constituencies including Attingal and Alappuzha, where candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made significant electoral strides. The voteshift was also one of the factors that helped actor Suresh Gopi win the Thrissur Lok Sabha seat.For many decades Ezhavas, a powerful OBC group with many tall leaders who share the legacy of communist struggles, had been the backbone of the CPI(M). They are the largest Hindu community in Kerala and constitute around 23% of the state’s population - a solid voter base that has ensured the victory of CPI(M) candidates in their strongholds..The dramatic political shift was evident in Alappuzha, where the BJP candidate Sobha Surendran, an Ezhava herself, surged ahead of CPI(M)’s AM Ariff in several of their pockets. Though the constituency – the lone seat won by the Left in 2019 Lok Sabha polls – was wrested from Ariff by KC Venugopal of Congress, Sobha, a firebrand leader with fair share of controversies, polled close to three lakh votes. The CPI(M) itself acknowledged that their debacle was because minorities, like in the 2019 general elections, preferred to stay with the Congress-led UDF and the Ezhava voters shifted right.Roots of disaffectionTNM spoke to voters in the panchayats in Kayamkulam, Ambalappuzha, and Haripad in Alappuzha where many party votes shifted to the BJP. The unrest among CPI(M) sympathisers and local leaders against the party's area committee leadership and state leadership was notable. The disaffection was further fuelled by anger towards Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, perceived to be arrogant, corruption allegations against his daughter and multiple governance failures including delays in distribution of welfare pensions. Additionally, factional feuds and internal party issues at the district level significantly impacted the party's performance.A veteran CPI(M) member from Ambalappuzha, who did not want to be identified, told TNM, “Alappuzha should be a lesson. Though party votes were lost in the districts of Kollam, Kottayam, and Thiruvananthapuram, the outcome in Alappuzha will be more shocking and painful for the party. But it should be a lesson.”The Punnapra-Vayalar revolt of October, 1946, known after two localities in Alappuzha, where hundreds were killed in police firing, is considered a landmark in the history of trade unionism in Kerala. The incident played a major role in the growth of communism in the state and the reason why shifting allegiance of a core voter base is hurtful to the party."Party leaders engage in corruption, violence, and hooliganism. If we go to the panchayat for some need, they will make us walk 100 times. If we do anything against their will, they will threaten us," alleged Sarojini, a tea shop owner and party sympathiser.Sobha Surendran, known for increasing the vote share of BJP in every electoral contest, did the same in Alappuzha. Over one lakh votes moved to the BJP from CPI(M) sympathisers and helped surge the party’s vote share to 28.3% from 17.2% it had in 2019. In the Assembly constituencies of Ambalappuzha and Karunagappally, the BJP was in third place but had only less than a 200-vote difference with the LDF candidate who was in second place. In CPI(M)-ruled panchayats of Pathiyoor, Chettikulangara, Kandalloor, Kumarapuram, Karuvatta, and Cheppad, the LDF was pushed to third position, and in some booths, the BJP gained more votes than them..Shifting allegiance of votersR Nazar, the Alappuzha district secretary of CPI(M) said the party was aware that Ezhava votes would shift to the BJP. “We knew this prior to the elections, but we expected Muslim votes to compensate for the loss. However, Muslim votes went to the UDF. This time, the BJP's campaign specifically targeted Ezhava votes, as their candidate was a woman from that community,” he said.In 2019, the UDF and LDF had Muslim candidates. In 2024, while the Left fielded Ariff, a Muslim, the UDF had a dominant caste Hindu candidate and the BJP propped up an Ezhava woman.It has been eight years since the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam, the community’s apex body, launched a political outfit Bharatiya Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS). The Sena became an alliance partner of the NDA in Kerala, a year after its birth but was unable to bring in electoral benefits for the front so far. Thushar Vellappally, president of the BDJS, and son of Vellappally Natesan, who heads the Yogam, is also the convenor of the NDA in Kerala. He unsuccessfully contested two Lok Sabha polls in 2019 - against Rahul Gandhi in Wayanad - and Kottayam in 2024, where he finished third.The BJP had been targeting Ezhava votes in southern Kerala through the BDJS alliance but engineering a shift in voter allegiance seemed a hard task until 2024. “We expect a massive change in the coming elections. We are confident that the Ezhava belt will soon become a BJP bastion,” said a senior BJP leader.The influence Sobha Surendran had on women voters as an Ezhava woman also helped BJP. She also has the image of a feisty politician unafraid to take on even top leaders in her own party, when they tried to undermine her. “During her campaign, she effectively leveraged her identity, convincing women voters that she has the potential to become a Union minister," said a CPI(M) leader..Allegations of Muslim appeasementVellappally Natesan, based in Kanichukulangara in Alappuzha and holds great influence in the region as the general secretary of SNDP Yogam, recently blamed LDF's Muslim appeasement for the shift in voter sentiments. Natesan wrote an article in Yogam mouthpiece Yoga Nadam accusing the CPI(M) and CPI of appeasing Muslims by giving them more than a fair share ofRajya Sabha seats. He said that among the nine Rajya Sabha nominated MPs, five are from the Muslim community and two from the Christian community."The CPI(M) and CPI have allocated their seats to members of the Muslim community. This type of bias was also observed in the Lok Sabha elections. The parties assigned seats to Muslims in Malappuram and Christians in Kottayam, claiming these communities form the majority in these constituencies. But in Hindu-majority areas, both the LDF and UDF nominated Christian and Muslim candidates," Vellappally wrote, referring to CPI(M)’s candidate AM Ariff in Alappuzha.Alleging that the CPI(M) is engaging in Muslim appeasement at the expense of backward communities he said the Left gifted several educational institutions to Muslims but failed to provide SNDP with even a school. Although Vellappally has often raised allegations of Muslim appeasement against the LDF and UDF in the past, this time, he and his son, who heads BDJS, managed to communicate this effectively to the Ezhava community. They were able to sway traditional CPI(M) voters away from the party.BJP leadership has backed Vellappally’s claims. Alappuzha BJP district president MV Gopakumar said the party had only 40,000 votes in Alappuzha in 2014. “It went up to 140,000 in 2019, and this time it is nearly 300,000. This change was not sudden but slow and gradual. Many people from CPI(M) have switched to BJP in the last few years,” he said.Rise in anti-Muslim sentiments among Ezhava community is also seen as one of the reasons why Ezhava voters moved closer to the BJP. The murder of Renjith Srinivas, a BJP leader from the Ezhava community, was a factor in the elections, Gopakumar said. Renjith, a lawyer and the state secretary of the BJP’s OBC Morcha, was brutally hacked to death at his house in Vellakinar, Alappuzha, on December 19, 2021. The accused in the case were members of the banned outfit Popular Front of India and its political arm SDPI. His murder was a retaliation for the murder of an SDPI leader, Shan, the previous night. A year later, hate slogans were raised during a Popular Front of India rally in Alappuzha creating further tensions between the two communities.Gopakumar alleged that both the Congress and CPI(M) have been supporting SDPI to appease Muslims. “This is why the voting pattern changed," he said. In 2024, SDPI did not contest the elections and said they would back the UDF candidate.According to BJP district leadership, the party had more votes than the CPI(M) in around 300 polling booths. "We have around 86 ward members at grama panchayat and block panchayat levels. Their ground-level work was also significant," he noted..Fuming factionsPathiyoor, a panchayat in Kayamkulam Assembly constituency, known as the "Kannur of southern Kerala," is where the communist party was first established in Alappuzha. A CPI(M) stronghold, the BJP had leads in more than 10 polling booths in the panchayat. In several others, it came second, pushing CPI(M) to third place. "Voting patterns in Pathiyoor are a reflection of the dirty factional feuds and corrupt local leadership of the party. The party needs to change. I don’t want to say anything more," said Raghavan, a party worker who runs a grocery shop.Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Bibin C Babu, a local CPI(M) leader in Kayamkulam, one of the seven Assembly constituencies that constitute Alappuzha LS, wrote to the party's state secretary announcing his resignation. The party found itself in a tight spot as the letter revealed that murder of an Indian National Trade Union Congress leader in 2001 was carried out by the party. Babu, was an accused in the case but was acquitted by a court in 2006.The discontent within the party had been simmering in Kayamkulam since 2016, mostly because of the party faction opposed to Kayamkulam MLA Prathibha Hari. Anonymous Facebook pages and profiles regularly raise complaints against Kayamkulam area committee leaders, who have been accused of irregularities. Voices of dissentG Sudhakaran, former minister and veteran CPI(M) leader, recently courted controversy after a media report said he had called Narendra Modi a strong administrator and praised his cabinet, stating that there were no corruption allegations against them. In 2021, the party had reprimanded him for hampering the party's chances in the Ambalapuzha constituency. One of the tallest leaders in Alappuzha district after former chief minister VS Achuthanandan, a 100-year-old veteran, who is no longer active in the party, Sudhakaran has often expressed displeasure at the party leadership. TNM met him at his residence at Punnapra in Alappuzha but he refused to speak. “I will not discuss anything further from now on. I will not give any more interviews. You should go and ask the people of Alappuzha constituency what happened here. The people know better; you should ask them,” Sudhakaran said. In an interview with 24 News he expressed concerns about the CPI(M) losing its national influence citing examples of the party losing seats in Tripura and West Bengal. Speaking about the overall lack of leadership in political parties, he commented, “A group of donkeys led by a lion is better than a group of lions led by a donkey.” It turned into a controversy as it was interpreted as a swipe at the CPI(M)’s state leadership. In the interview, Sudhakaran also shared a hope for change, saying, "It's the communists here who taught people to vote for ideology and not for caste and religion. So the solution lies within communism."A communist leader from Haripad stated, “Until now, religion and caste did not significantly influence Ezhava voters in Alappuzha. But this time, campaigning for votes based on caste and Muslim appeasement made a difference. In a sense, CPI(M) bears responsibility for this. It has created a sense of insecurity among us. There needs to be a change in leadership,” he said.

Ground report: How BJP made Ezhava voters sway right in Left bastion of Alappuzha

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