The BJP has finally made inroads in Kerala's traditionally bipolar political landscape, securing three seats in the Assembly elections and signalling a potential shift in the state's political dynamics.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's wish to see the Bharatiya Janata Party's rise in electoral politics in Kerala now rests on its three entrants to the state Assembly, among whom are two former Union ministers.
The BJP in Kerala, which has long struggled to secure a political foothold in a state traditionally witnessing a bipolar contest between the Left Democratic Front and United Democratic Front, on Monday made significant gains in the Assembly elections by winning three seats.
The State Assembly, set to be dominated by the Congress-led UDF with the LDF in opposition, will also have three BJP members, marking a significant development for the party in the southern state.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led LDF and the Congress-led UDF had dismissed the BJP's chances of winning any seats, but the saffron party defied expectations by securing three constituencies, all from the Left front.
Though the outcome may appear modest to the UDF and LDF, for the BJP-long politically marginal in Kerala-these wins are being seen as a breakthrough.
The results also reflect the efforts of the party's star campaigners, including PM Narendra Modi, BJP national president Nitin Nabin, and Union Ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Nirmala Sitharaman, who made several visits to Kerala to boost the party's prospects.
The efforts appear to have paid off to some extent, even as the party had initially hoped to reach double-digit seats.
Two of the seats-Nemom and Kazhakoottam-are in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation area, where the BJP has a significant presence, as reflected in its control of the civic body in the recent local body polls.
The third seat, Chathannoor, is in Kollam district, close to the state capital.
Of the three BJP winners, two are former Union Ministers of State-Rajeev Chandrasekhar and V Muraleedharan-both of whom had contested and lost from Thiruvananthapuram in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The third, B B Gopakumar, a local party leader, won the Chathannoor seat on his third attempt.
However, senior BJP leaders K Surendran, Padmaja Venugopal and Sobha Surendran were unsuccessful.
Both K Surendran and Padmaja Venugopal lost in their third consecutive attempts from Manjeshwar and Thrissur, respectively, while Sobha Surendran lost from Palakkad for the second time, having earlier contested there in 2016.
Notably, the BJP fielded candidates in 98 seats and allotted the remaining to allies, Twenty20 and Bharath Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS).
The BJP has long struggled to make political inroads in Kerala, which has traditionally seen a bipolar contest between the LDF and UDF.
Though it won Nemom in the 2016 Assembly elections, the seat returned to the CPI-M in 2021, and the BJP's electoral breakthrough came only in 2024 when it won the Thrissur Lok Sabha seat.
It later won the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation in the 2025 local body polls and has now secured three seats in the State Assembly.
At the same time, the party's vote share dropped to 11.42 per cent in the Assembly elections, according to Election Commission data. It was around 15 per cent in the local body polls.
Reacting to the outcome, Chandrasekhar said it was largely an anti-CPI(M) election, with both the UDF and BJP benefiting.
He also described the elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala as being 'against the INDIA bloc' and claimed that voters had helped defeat governments of that political front in those states.
He said the results marked the final phase of what he termed Marxist-style governance.
Chandrasekhar further claimed that during the past 10 years of LDF rule, there was no effective opposition in the state, as the Congress remained silent due to its INDIA bloc alignment.
"That will not be the situation going forward. Now there will be three MLAs who will raise every issue of the people of Kerala and also oppose any attempt at corruption by the government," he said.