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Ten years after their lone victory in an assembly election in Kerala, the Bharatiya Janata Party has once again made its way into the state legislature. In the election, which saw a sweeping victory of the Congress-led opposition that brought down the ten-year-old Left government, the BJP raised its seat count from 0 to 3. The party has won from Nemom and Kazhakoottam in Thiruvananthapuram, and Chathannoor in Kollam.
The party, however, has not improved its vote share. From 11.3% in 2021, it has just touched 11.4 % in 2026.
The BJP, which has led the national government for the past 12 years, has hardly had a presence in the southern state. The single assembly seat it won in Nemom in 2016 was wiped out in the 2021 election. However, the party's prominent leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who lost the Lok Sabha election from the state capital two years ago, found victory in Nemom. He defeated Minister and CPI(M)'s trusted lieutenant V Sivankutty. Congress leader and councillor KS Sabarinadhan came third.
Kazhakoottam fell to the BJP in the final rounds of counting. In 2021, LDF candidate Kadakampally Surendran had publicly apologised for the Sabarimala incidents before the elections and successfully defended his Kazhakoottam seat against a strong challenge from BJP's Sobha Surendran, winning by a margin of 23,497 votes. In 2026, he again faced intense BJP criticism over the Sabarimala gold theft allegations and lost his seat to former Union Minister V Muraleedharan in a nail-biting finish, falling short by just 428 votes.
"I have been saying since 2025 that whatever the CPI(M) tries, it won't win this election. This was an anti-CPI(M) election, after their ten years of rule and the Sabarimala theft," Chandrasekhar said about the BJP's victory in Kerala. "I promise the people of Nemom that I will be their servant and work for them 24 hours a day," he added.
Nemom, a constituency comprising prominent parts of the city of Thiruvananthapuram, has been closely watched since BJP veteran O Rajagopal won the seat in 2016, making a historic opening for the party in the Kerala assembly. After Rajagopal's victory, both major fronts — the Congress-led United Democratic Front and the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front — fielded prominent candidates in the 2021 polls. V Sivankutty, who had held the seat before Rajagopal won it, took it back, while Congress leader K Muraleedharan came third.
The BJP, however, remained hopeful of Nemom, buoyed by the generous vote shares the party received from the constituency even as it failed to convert them into a victory. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who lost the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat to Congress leader Shashi Tharoor in 2024, still commanded a considerable lead in the Nemom segment. As early as December 2025, he announced his candidacy for Nemom, before election dates had even been set.
A surprise victory for the BJP also came from the Chathannoor constituency in Kollam, which had been held by the CPI for the past 15 years. BJP leader BB Gopakumar, who had finished second in Chathannoor in the previous two elections, won with a margin of 4,398 votes, defeating R Rajendran of the CPI. The LDF had replaced its MLA of 15 years, S Jayalal, with Rajendran.
Several other prominent party leaders, however, were defeated. Sobha Surendran, a veteran who had contested for the BJP for years, once again failed to make a mark, losing to actor and Congress candidate Ramesh Pisharody in Palakkad. K Surendran, former BJP state president, suffered a heavy defeat in Manjeshwaram, losing to UDF candidate AKM Ashraf by over 32,000 votes.
Among the other prominent BJP candidates who faced defeat were Union Minister George Kurian, former DGP and councillor R Sreelekha, Padmaja Venugopal who contested from Thrissur, and PC George and his son Shone George, who were in the fray from Poonjar and Pala respectively.