Can BJP finally get its sums right in Kerala with Rajeev Chandrasekhar?

Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s CV is about academic and career highlights – higher education in the US and a job with one of the world’s biggest tech companies. Once, back in India, he played a part in a $1.1 billion corporate deal.

Then, of course, there was that quite successful stint as minister in the second Narendra Modi cabinet.

But, right now, Chandrasekhar has been handed over the toughest assignment one can think of – to work on a strategy that will see the BJP send MLAs to the Kerala state assembly once the next election takes place (some time before May 2026).

So far, in its chequered history in Kerala state politics, the BJP has only managed to hint at the possibility of winning multiple seats, but never ever managing to do anything about it. (Sure, there was the one MLA the BJP did have, between 2016-21, in the form of O. Rajagopal who won from a seat in Thiruvananthapuram district.)

In Rajeev Chandrasekhar, has the BJP finally found the ideal person to turn around its fortunes in a state where it has spent a lot of energy and funds to gain relevance. And where the party has always come up short…

If Chandrasekhar sticks to his strengths – of being a numbers’ man, of using data and ideas to develop a message – then there is a good chance that a sizable base of Kerala’s electorate might be willing to hear what he has to say.

But whatever be his strategy, it should be about what can reasonably be achieved rather than rely on identity politics, which seems to have been the only strategy the BJP deployed through the years in Kerala. (Even Suresh Gopi’s win in Thrissur during the 2024 Parliament elections had to do with him being the candidate and the kind of rapport he built up with the electorate.)

Even if Chandrasekhar manages to win between 5-10 seats in the 2026 Kerala state elections, that would constitute a massive win. Because, at the very least, it would actually create a third prong in the state that has overwhelmingly been a binary one – LFD and UDF – since the 1950s.

If the BJP does land some MLAs in 2026, it will also mean a decisive say in who forms the next government in Kerala. Something that has never happened before, even in those times where the BJP managed to poll enough to be the second-placed in a few seats.

So far, the Kerala unit of the BJP’s role has been that of a spoiler, where it impacts on the performance of others. Chandrasekhar could end up changing that.

And hopefully, he will be the one Kerala BJP state president who at each election campaigning – whether for parliament or assembly – starts off talking about winning a majority of seats. And when the results come in, has zero or a single seat to show off.

Chandrasekhar doesn’t do much of hype, nor is he an individual using emotion to connect with voters. (Something Suresh Gopi does in abundance…)

Instead, Chandrasekhar is all data points and demographic splits. A more calculated approach is probably just what’s needed by the BJP in Kerala. It has tried all other options, but never pushing its way beyond the mid-20% range in votes polled. The party needs to break past the 30% barrier if the BJP wants to sustain its presence in the state.

In Chandrasekhar, they have found one who can do the sums – and known to do it correctly.

Whether that turns into 5-10 MLAs is for the 2026 election to answer…