Whatever the outcome, the BJP is bending all its energies to realise its long-cherished dream. The party has adopted a three-pronged strategy to bring their plans to fruition.

The Kerala BJP has singled out 6 constituencies where it has the best chances of winning. These are: Manjeswaram, Kasargode, Nemam, Thiruvananthapuram, Kattakkada and Vattiyurkavu. In Nemam, the party has fielded its seniormost leader in the state and former Railway Minister O Rajagopal. At Nileswaram, the BJP has put up as its candidate the Kerala unit’s general secretary K Surendran. Even the BJP’s opponents concede that it will not be easy to defeat the BJP candidates in these two constituencies.

Top national leaders of the BJP like Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, BJP president Nitin Gadkari, senior leaders Arun Jaitley and Venkaiah Naidu are likely to campaign for the BJP candidates in the six ‘winnable’ seats.

The party has also singled out as many as 40 seats where it expects to put up a good performance. These constituencies are spread allover the state, including southern districts and northern region.

The BJP is contesting all the seats this time primarily to avoid the oft-repeated charge against the party : that it resorts to transfer of votes to the winning candidates in constituencies where the BJP’s chances are negligible. It has done it in the past. But this time Kerala BJP chief V Muralidharan, who undertook a statelong yatra sometime back,, says there is no question of the party transferring its votes.

Party leaders are hopeful of increasing its vote percentage this time to around 10 per cent. In the 2006 assembly elections, the BJP had polled 4.7 per cent of votes.

Another notable feature of the BJP’s poll strategy this time is that the RSS workers have taken over the charge of electioneering in a large number of constituencies, especially in the six seats where the party considers its chances to be very high.
The Kerala BJP’s optimism of opening its account stems from the good show the party put up in the local bodies elections in the state held in October 2010.

In an interesting move, the BJP has not fielded any candidate against Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan who is contesting from Malampuzha in Palakkad district. The move has attracted criticism from the Congress of a CPI(M)-BJP nexus in the elections ,a charge which the CPI(M) has dismissed.

While the BJP leaders are hopeful of opening its account this time, some observers say it is unlikely to win any seats. But the party’s poll percentage will go up, they concede.

However, if the BJP succeeds in winning a few seats, as predicted by one of the pre-poll surveys, that will give a big boost to the party’s pet project of forming a third front in the state. If it draws a blank, that project will continue to remain a mere gleam in the BJP eye. (IPA)