By Matters India Reporter
Kochi: The Bharatiya Janata Party has fielded 500 Christian and 112 Muslim candidates for the local body elections in Kerala.
If the BJP manages to win at least municipal corporations in these elections, it would brighten the party’s chances in the Kerala assembly elections scheduled to be held in 2021.
Kerala will elect its local bodies on December 8, 10 and 14 and the results are expected on December 16.
The state has total 27,656,579 voters: 13,172,629 male, 14,483,668 female and 282 transgender.
More than 75,000 candidates are in the fray for the polls after November 24, the last day for withdrawing nominations.
The voters will choose from 54,494 candidates for 941 grama panchayats. The candidates contesting in 152 block panchayats number 6,877 while 1,317 will fight it out for 14 district panchayats.
The 87 municipalities in the state will see 10,339 candidates and the six corporations have 1,986 candidates
At 8,497, Malappuram tops the list candidates in the fray, followed by Ernakulam 7,256, Thrissur 7,020 and Palakkad 6,532.
Wayanad has the least number of candidates with only 1,858 in the fray.
The BJP’s aim to win at least two of the six municipal corporations can be achieved only with the help of minorities.
Federal Home Minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath are expected to campaign for the BJP’s minority candidates, India Today reported.
They seem to ignore BJP leader KS Easwarappa, who had raked a controversy by stating that the party would not give tickets to Muslims in the upcoming Lok Sabha byelections.
In Kerala, Muslims and Christians account for 45 percent of the state’s population. Hindus form the rest.
Despite being a stronghold of the rightwing fringe group – the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) –Kerala has not helped the BJP to make a mark in the state. Hindutva politics has so far failed to translate into votes as far as elections in Kerala. It managed to win only one seat in the state legislature.