The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) active outreach to the Christian community has seemingly put the Congress and Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] on their guard.
Outwardly, both parties attempted to portray the BJP’s courting of Church leaders as a sign of weakness rather than aggressive community engagement.
In a Facebook post, Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan said the BJP leaders called on Bishops on Easter Sunday to camouflage the Sangh Parivar’s “crimes” against Christians and other minorities.
CPI(M) State secretary M.V. Govindan said the “pro-BJP statements” from two Church leaders in Kerala contrasted starkly with the clergy’s protest in New Delhi against the Sangh Parivar’s “targeting” of Christians in 21 States in the country.
Meanwhile, BJP workers and leaders fanned out across Kerala on Easter Day. They knocked on the doors of parishioners and Church leaders to convey Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s festival greetings.
Union Minister of State for External Affairs V. Muraleedharan visited Latin Archbishop Thomas J. Netto in Thiruvananthapuram. Party State president K. Surendran called on Kozhikode Archbishop Varghese Chackalakkal. In Kannur, BJP leaders met Thalassery Archbishop Mar Joseph Pamplany.
The party’s ‘Sneha Yatra’ programme seemed customised to persuade the Christian community to reconsider its traditional political allegiances.
The BJP aspires to chip away at Congress’s share of the crucial voting block.
Hence, the party also tailors its messages around the rubber economy and speaks to the Church’s fears about the alleged “love and narcotic jihads.”
The BJP seemed acutely aware that many Christian households have seen their incomes plummet due to low cash crop prices. The party is attempting to convince the community that the Centre could improve Kerala’s cash crop economy better than the Congress or the CPI(M).
The BJP seemed to harbour no delusion that Christians would flock to the Modi bandwagon in overwhelming numbers at a stroke. But it perceives that even a slight expansion of its relatively small base among Christians could hurt the Congress and dismay the CPI(M) in close 2024 Lok Sabha election contests in Central and North Kerala.
The CPI(M) also attempts to engage the Christian community on issues such as rubber-price protection instead of solely focussing on the “threat” posed by the BJP to minorities. It had recently rallied rubber farmers in Kottayam and blamed the Centre’s neo-liberal economic policies for their plight.