The ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF and the Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) on Thursday sought to downplay the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) gambit to strategically put Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the front and centre of its ambitious 2024 Lok Sabha campaign in Kerala.
Local leaders had pointedly taken a back seat at Wednesday’s BJP-sponsored women’s rally in Thrissur as Mr. Modi appealed directly to voters and presented himself as the embodiment of the party and Central government.
Mr. Modi’s messaging was often in the third person in what was widely viewed as his first campaign speech in South India. He presented the Central government’s welfare and development schemes as tangible manifestations of “Modi’s guarantee” to the people.
The message of a personality cult-oriented monolithic leadership transmitted by Mr Modi in Thrissur contrasted sharply with the anti-BJP INDIA Bloc’s perceived inability to project a Prime Minister face or a distinct national leadership.
Mr. Modi avoided speaking about the alleged persecution of the minority Christian community in Manipur, a hot-button issue that the BJP fears will likely undo its high-profile attempts to court the Christians, a crucial voting bloc, in Kerala.
Communist Party of India (CPI) State secretary Binoy Vishwam sought to deflate BJP’s high-decibel “for-Modi” electoral pitch in Kerala by stating that the violence against women in Manipur belied Mr. Modi’s grandstanding about gender rights in Thrissur.
He quoted RSS idealogue M.S. Golwalkar’s Vichara Dhara that “identified Muslims, Christians and Communists as fifth columnists and internal enemies.” to hobble BJP’s Christian outreach in Kerala.
In Thrissur, Congress workers went beyond political statements. They resorted to direct action by attempting to symbolically purify the venue of Mr. Modi’s rally by sprinkling water laced with cow dung, resulting in a skirmish with BJP activists.
BJP State president K. Surendran attempted to turn the tables on the Congress by emotively portraying the protest as an act of “elitist contempt” towards Mr. Modi’s underprivileged backward class origins.
Leader of the Opposition V. D. Satheesan sought to dispel Mr. Modi’s allegation that the Congress and the CPI(M) were allies masquerading as enemies in Kerala and a mandate for the BJP would spell an end to the State’s self-defeating revolving door politics.
“The Lok Sabha battle in Kerala is between the ruling front and Opposition, and the BJP is nowhere in the reckoning,” he said. Communist Party of India (Marxist) State Secretary M. V. Govindan echoed a similar sentiment.
