Will God’s Own Country cash in on the political trend this time? Kerala, slated to go to polls in April-May 2016, is stirring a cauldron of political potpourri – beef, church, caste, class, corruption, sleaze and religion – that could change the existing social and political equations and throw up some surprises.

The BJP, which has been struggling to secure a seat in the Kerala assembly for over five decades, may open its account in the state, courtesy the Shree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP) – an umbrella outfit of Ezhavas, a Hindu OBC group constituting 20 percent of the state’s population. They were hitherto the main support base of the CPI(M).