And the most essential prerequisite for achieving the ambitious goal was further firming up of the BJP’s alliance with the Dharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) in the State.

True, Amit Shah has congratulated the BJP’s state leadership for the party’s performance in the assembly elections, its vote strength having gone up from 5 to 15 per cent. But Shah is obviously not satisfied with securing a small slice of the Ezhava vote bank. The BJP president wants a bigger slice, if not the entire Ezhava vote cake, for the 2019 electoral battle.

Shah has admitted that the BDJS has played a prominent role in helping the BJP increase its vote share in the assembly elections. But its estrangement with the Sivagiri Mutt, the spiritual seat of the Ezhava community, constituting 27 per cent of the State’s population, is a major hurdle to achieving complete control of the Ezhava vote bank.

Hence his visit to the Mutt without even informing the Mutt authorities! An obvious attempt to rebuild the burnt bridge between the SNDP-sponsored political party, the BDJS and the Sivagiri Mutt.

It may be mentioned that the Mutt had strongly opposed Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam general secretary Velklappally Natesan’s efforts to cosy up to the BJP before the assembly elections. Saffronisation of the SNDP was the last thing the Mutt wanted.

But, has Shah succeeded in getting what he wanted, from the Mutt ? Early reports indicate he may not have. Shah promised the Mutt a large carrot – a Rs 1000-crore package to help the Mutt set up a medical college and revamp the Mutt to assuage their anger towards the SNDP and its political arm, the BDJS.

But the seers of the Sivagiri Mutt have remained tight-lipped, post Shah’s visit. An obvious sign that Shah has not managed to fully redress their grievance. The rather cold reception that was accorded to Tushar Vellappally, BDJS general secretary, was another give-away of the Mutt’s continued antipathy towards the SNDP.

Be that as it may, even if the Mutt makes up with the SNDP and the BDJS, It won’t ensure total support of the Ezhava community for the BJP-BDJS alliance in the state. The election results clearly show that the BJP-BDJS alliance has not yielded the kind of dividend the duo were expecting to secure. And the top brass of the SNDP and BDJS also knows that, even if the Mutt enjoins upon it, majority of the Ezhavas won’t change their pro-left political orientation so easily. In other words, Shah will have to make many more trips before he can hope to blunt the edge of the Mutt’s hostility to the SNDP and BDJS leadership.

That being the sobering reality, the BJP-BDJS combine is aware that it has a long way to go to realize their dream of firming up third front in the state, which will wrest power from the Congress-led United Democratic Front(UDF) and the CPI(M)-headed Left Democratic Front(LDF), now in power in God’s Own Country. It is a much sobered Shah who has returned to Delhi from Kerala. (IPA Service)