Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 12: With Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Thiruvananthapuram likely later this month, the Bharatiya Janata Party is preparing to formally launch its Kerala Assembly election campaign, building on the political groundwork laid by Home Minister Amit Shah during his just-concluded visit to the state capital.
Party sources said that PM Modi’s presence will mark the shift from internal consolidation to mass outreach, with a sharpened campaign narrative already taking shape.
HM Shah’s interactions with the BJP’s state leadership and his address to local body representatives are being seen as the strategic prelude to PM Modi’s visit.
During the ‘Mission 2026’ campaign launch, HM Shah signalled that the alleged disappearance of gold from Sabarimala would be positioned as a central political issue, one that the party believes has resonance beyond Kerala and appeals to devotees across the country.
Launching a frontal attack on Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, HM Shah demanded an investigation by an independent and impartial agency into the Sabarimala gold case.
Claiming to have examined the FIR, he alleged that it was drafted in a manner that protected the accused and questioned the credibility of an investigation when individuals linked to the ruling Left Democratic Front were under suspicion.
The Union Home Minister argued that the issue was not merely a state-level controversy but a matter of national concern, as it involved the faith of millions of devotees.
He also alleged that evidence pointed to the involvement of Congress leaders, asserting that the United Democratic Front could not distance itself from the case.
Calling on the Chief Minister to hand over the probe to a neutral agency, he announced that the BJP would intensify its campaign through statewide protests and door-to-door outreach programmes, indicating that Sabarimala would remain a recurring theme in the party’s messaging.
Beyond the immediate controversy, HM Shah sought to frame the broader political narrative ahead of 2026, declaring that communism had lost relevance globally and that the Congress was weakening nationally.
Kerala’s development, he argued, was possible only under a BJP-led government, reiterating the party’s aim of seeing a Chief Minister sworn in under the lotus symbol.
With HM Shah having set the ideological and campaign agenda, attention now turns to PM Modi’s anticipated visit, which is expected to consolidate the Sabarimala narrative, energise the cadre base, and formally place the BJP’s Kerala Assembly campaign on a national political footing.
The BJP in Kerala at present has no representation in the 140-member Kerala Assembly, while Suresh Gopi won a stunning victory in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Thrissur.
–IANS