The deafening silence maintained by both BJP president Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the face of the belligerent VHP campaign has deepened the misgivings of the minorities in the State. A word of disapproval from Modi would have induced a rethink on the part of the VHP on their reconversion campaign. That nothing of the sort has happened has upset both Muslims and Christians who form a sizable section of Kerala’s electorate, and who can tilt the balance in a large number of constituencies. .

The timing of the VHP drive is also significant. It has come close on the heels of the visit to the State undertaken by BJP president Amit Shah. Although state BJP leaders say that the party has nothing to do with the VHP campaign, their refusal to condemn it gives the game away.

Emboldened by the PM’s silence, the VHP leaders have signalled their intent to go ahead with their reconversion drive in the future as well. The move is ominous and bodes ill for a state where various communities have lived in harmony and amity over decades. The VHP’s future plans cannot but rend the fabric of communal amity.

The BJP had, during the recent visit to the State by Amit Shah, set for itself an ambitious target: from zero to 71 for the state assembly elections due in 2016. Also, the BJP chief wanted the state BJP leaders to achieve a membership enrolment target of 50 lakh from the present five lakh by March next year.

Secular parties have been quick to scoff at the ambitious plans of the State BJP, sarcastically referring to the BJP move as ‘Mission Impossible’. They do have a point: the BJP in Kerala simply does not have the organisational muscle to pull off the ‘miracle’. Besides, the BJP unit in the State is a house divided against itself, with various factions working at cross purposes. Given this stark reality, the question of the BJP achieving the 0 to 71 target is simply out of question, they assert.

What is even more important, they argue, is the fact that Kerala has always remained a rich and enduring mosaic of communal harmony. The Kerala soil is not conducive to the fast growth of the Lotus, and that the ‘communal plant’ transplants badly in the State. That is their clinching argument.

BJP sources, however, rebut this contention with their counter-argument. They draw attention to the rapid strides the party has made in a traditionally left-oriented State like West Bengal ever since Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister. If a communist fort like Bengal can crumble, can Kerala be far behind, they ask. In support of their stance, they refer to the phenomenal rise in the BJP vote in the Neyyattinkara by-election to the State Assembly. There the BJP candidate polled over 30,000 votes – a five-fold increase from the 6000 odd votes it had secured in the earlier assembly polls.

Secular parties like the Congress and the CPI(M), however, downplay the significance of the BJP feat. It is argued that Neyyattinkara was a one-time aberration. To expect the replication of it across the state in such a short time is to ask for the moon. That is what the Congress and CPI(M) leaders contend. Also, it was not a pro-BJP vote. It was more an anti-Congress and anti-UDF vote because of the popular revulsion against the Oommen Chandy Government’s unabashed policy of minority appeasement. The BJP fared better also because its candidate O. Rajagopal is a widely respected leader with an impeccable public service record and reputation for honesty and integrity. BJP leaders will be living in a fool’s paradise if they think the party can repeat the performance either in the upcoming local bodies elections or the more crucial state assembly elections slated for May 2016.

Be that as it may, the Congress and the CP:I(M) cannot afford the luxury of allowing themselves to be lulled into a false sense of complacency. Both the parties simply cannot shut their eyes to the disturbing erosion of their vote base, and the trickle towards the BJP over the years. The fact that the BJP’s vote percentage has gone up from 3.8 to 10 per cent in the last assembly elections speaks for itself. The party polled an impressive 19 lakh votes in the assembly polls. If these 19 lakh people can be enrolled as BJP members, that itself will be a big achievement, aver BJP leaders.

The VHP campaign will also have an adverse impact on the BJJP’s efforts to woo the minorities, especially the Christians. Soon after the assumption of power by the BJP Government at the Centre, the Prime Minister had had a meeting with the president of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Baselios Cleemis – an obvious attempt to build bridges of understanding with the Christian community. The meeting had also triggered speculation about the likely entry into the BJP of the most visible Catholic face in the Congress-led UDF Government, Kerala Congress(M) president and Finance Minister, K. M. Mani. A section of the BJP leaders had also lavished praise on Mani, hoping that he would quit the UDF because of the KC(M)’s strained ties with the Congress, which heads the UDF. That the situation has undergone a sea--change, with Mani finding himself in the eye of a storm following the levelling of corruption charges by the Bar Owners Association’s working president is a different matter.

But all this good will has been dissipated by the VHP’s campaign and the Modi’ Government’s action in alienating the Christians with their recent ill-advised moves against the community.

In retrospect, the BJP would seem to have botched up the ‘Kerala mission’. The BJP, a la the leopard, cannot change its communal spots, argue the Christian leaders. The fallout has been the setback the efforts to cobble together a third front independent of the Congress-led UDF and the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF).

That is good news for the secular parties. But they also have their task cut out. They will have to get their act together fast and bend their energies to the difficult task of arresting erosion of their Hindu vote to the BJP by applying the correctives apace. Time is running out. And the secular parties will be ignoring the writing on the wall at their own peril. The secular fort in Kerala is in grave danger. Defending it with all their might is the paramount task of all parties which put a premium on the preservation of the secular, democratic and pluralistic ethos. (IPA Service)