A gruelling election season is over and CPM-led LDF won 91 seats unseating INC-led UDF. There was a strong wave of anti-incumbency and people voted out a corrupt, minority appeasing dispensation led by INC.

Some facts :

 Kerala has 140 assembly seats



 On an average 140,000 votes get polled per seat (fairly uniform distribution of population per seat unlike north Indian states)



 Total of 2 crore voters utilised their voting rights in this 2016 election



 Kerala has a demographics of 52 percent Hindus, 19 percent Christians and 27 percent Muslims



 Women outnumber men as the number of voters



 Being mostly between UDF and LDF, the alliance which wins approximately 45 percent of vote in the constituency romps home.





In the see-saw Kerala politics between the two alliances,the strong showing of BJP-led NDA in 2016 election was an important change. MSM journos have written reams on this but have just harped on three points:



1. On BJP stitching together an alliance of likeminded parties for the first time



2. On veteran Leader O Rajagopal winning the Nemom seat and BJP opening its account in Kerala legislative assembly



3. BJP increasing its vote share from 5 percent to 11 percent.



But the structural changes that BJP brought in are deeper. This piece aims to put together some facts in that regard.



Fact#1 – Some quarters of media says it’s just a sympathy wave for veteran O Rajagopal because irrespective of high voltage campaign led by PM Narendra Modi, BJP ended up in just one seat. Yes only O Rajagopal won the seat. But the table below shows the performance by other BJP candidates scattered across 4 regions. Note that in 2011 Assembly elections, BJP had 0 wins and three 2nd positions