Despite the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerging as a force to reckon with in the polity of the State, the party has not made impressive gains in the local body elections, the results of which was declared on Wednesday.
The disunity of the State-level leaders and blatant factionalism on the eve of the polls have failed to break the bi-polar jinx that has been dampening the party in all elections. Each leader behaved like a separate entity without coming together on the same platform, thereby conveying a negative message to the cadres. Thus the huge gap between the great expectation and gloomy outcome was again evident in the polls.
The BJP failed to win the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation notwithstanding the muscular campaign in the State capital that attracted national attention. The party braved the odds between two established coalitions but failed to make it in the last lap. Its argument that the UDF and the LDF joined to defeat the BJP-led NDA could be likened to the whining school-boy who flunked the examinations without adequate preparation.
Also the party could not come out successful as anticipated in some municipalities other than retaining Palakkad and capturing Pandalam from the CPI(M)- led LDF. Its moderate presence in grama panchayats and block panchayats across the State reveals the party failed to strike a chord with the rural electorate.
The much-hyped campaign of the BJP leadership that the party had fielded over 400 nominees of the minority communities also did not yield the desired results. The party neither could take the Muslim community into confidence nor make inroads into the Christian votebank.
However, the BJP took solace in the fact that it made a dent into the vote share of the both the coalitions and especially played more spoilsport to the Congress-led UDF candidates. Its candidates campaigning with posters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi saved the day for the BJP State leadership which is yet to build an electoral strategy in coalition politics.
The BJP nominees won 23 grama panchayats, up from 14 last time. It won 1,181 grama panchayat wards, 37 block panchayat wards, two district panchayat divisions, 320 municipal wards and 59 Corporation divisions.
In the 2015 polls, the BJP had won 933 grama panchayat wards, 21 block panchayat wards, three district panchayat divisions, 236 municipal wards and 51 Corporation divisions.
