In Aruvikkara, BJP produces five-fold increase in vote share at the cost of CPI(M)

Although he finished third in the contest, BJP candidate O Rajagopal has gained 34,145 votes against the party’s then tally of 7,694 votes in 2011. A look at the vote share of various parties shows that only BJP has increased its vote share. The polled votes of Congress and CPI (M) remain almost at the same level when compared to the votes these two parties had got in 2011.

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Congress candidate K S Sabarinathan, who won the election, gained 56,448 votes as against the vote of 56,797 votes his father G Karthikeyan had obtained in 2011. CPI (M) candidate M Vijayakumar, who finished second in the by-election, has got 46,320 votes. In the 2011 assembly election, the LDF candidate had bagged 46,123 votes. This year, the total polled votes had increased by 26,000.

The huge increase in BJP’s vote share is mainly attributed to O Rajagopal, who is the most popular poll face of the saffron brigade in Kerala. In the recent elections, he had a history of suddenly jacking up the BJP vote share wherever he had contested. BJP had emerged second in Thiruvananthapuram LS elections in 2014 when Rajagopal had contested. At Aruvikkara also, the Rajagopal factor has worked mainly spoiling the CPI (M)’s prospects.

The other day, CPI (M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan had stated that but for Rajagopal as BJP candidate, Congress would have faced severe drubbing. The CPI (M)’s fear that BJP had spoiled the anti-incumbency factor against Congress government has come true.

When the BJP fielded Rajagopal for the by-election, political circles had expressed the notion that CPI (M) would be the loser in the election. Even Rajagopal’s candidature was construed by a section as the Congress strategy to prevent CPI (M) from emerging as the winner.

However for BJP, the vote that Rajagopal has fetched from Aruvikkara cannot be taken as an indicator that it could repeat the feat across Kerala.