The headlines aren't usually about the party that has come third in an election, unless everyone was expecting it to win. Yet when the results of the by-poll in Aruvikkara, Kerala were announced, the Bharatiya Janata Party got talked about the most. The party came in third, with the Congress actually taking the seat by over 10,000 votes, yet it was the massive jump in the BJP's fortunes that raised eyebrows. That's because BJP candidate O Rajagopal brought the party five times more votes than it had got in the last assembly polls – yet another indicator that the BJP could start to become a force in the state where it has never won a seat, assembly or Lok Sabha.
Most importantly though, the BJP's increase in the vote-share, going up from 6.6% in the 2011 assembly polls to nearly 24% this time around, is said to have come at the expense of the Left. Indeed, the candidate from the Left Democratic Front, which is the principal opposition in the state, managed just 32.5% of the voteshare, down from 39.61% four years ago. And even the victorious Congress actually ended up losing eight percentage points in vote share.
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Most importantly though, the BJP's increase in the vote-share, going up from 6.6% in the 2011 assembly polls to nearly 24% this time around, is said to have come at the expense of the Left. Indeed, the candidate from the Left Democratic Front, which is the principal opposition in the state, managed just 32.5% of the voteshare, down from 39.61% four years ago. And even the victorious Congress actually ended up losing eight percentage points in vote share.
