Kerala Assembly elections 2026: All parties trying to woo Christian vote banks

Jacob George feels that the BJP’s efforts to woo Christian voters may not work owing to back-to-back instances of attacks on Christian priests and nuns in various parts of the country by Sangh Parivar activists.

As the Assembly elections are approaching in Kerala, political parties are making all-out efforts to woo the Christian vote banks by engaging in formal and informal dialogues with church heads.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday held a meeting with the supreme head of the Universal Syriac Orthodox Church, Moran Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, a BJP delegation led by Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju called on Syro-Malabar Church Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil in Kochi last week.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan met leaders of almost all churches to discuss implementing the Justice J B Koshy Commission report on the problems faced by the Christian community. The Left Front government also decided to make the commission report public nearly five years after its submission.

Congress Legislative Party leader V D Satheesan, as well as former Opposition leader and chairman of the Congress campaign committee Ramesh Chennithala, also held talks with church heads recently.

Even as all political parties generally term the meetings as ‘courtesy calls’, the political motives behind such meetings just ahead of the polls are quite clear.

The Christian community constitutes around 18.4 percent of Kerala's population, while Hindus constitute 54.7 percent and Muslims 26.6 percent, as per the 2011 Census data. Despite being lower in numbers, the Christian community plays a key role in electoral politics as it is a crucial vote bank in many regions, mostly in central Kerala.

Though the Christian community was generally considered pro-Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), in the 2021 Assembly election, the CPM-led Left Democratic Front gained ground in many Christian belts such as Pathanamthitta, Kottayam and Idukki. The shift of the regional party Kerala Congress (M), which has considerable influence among Christian vote banks, to the LDF, as well as social engineering by Pinarayi Vijayan, such as the constitution of a commission to study the problems of the Christian community, were considered reasons for the shift.

"The Left Front could win up to 99 of the 140 seats in Kerala in 2021 only due to the support of the Christian vote banks. Hence, the UDF can no longer consider the Christian community as its sure vote bank," says political observer Jacob George.

He also feels that the BJP’s efforts to woo Christian voters may not work owing to back-to-back instances of attacks on Christian priests and nuns in various parts of the country by Sangh Parivar activists.

With the death of former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and former Defence Minister A K Antony keeping off active politics, there was a vacuum of leaders from the Christian community in the Congress leadership. The revamp in the party a few months ago by bringing Sunny Joseph as Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president, replacing K Sudhakaran MP, was part of social engineering to address this issue.