Social and religious divisions are crystal clear in the politics of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In the first list of 195 candidates released by the party’s election committee, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the chief decision maker, there are only two names from religious minorities — one Muslim and one Christian.
Both minority candidates in the list released on March 2 will be contesting from the communist-ruled southern Kerala state, where the pro-Hindu BJP hardly has any presence.
Anil Antony, a Catholic will be the BJP’s candidate from the Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha constituency with nearly 40 percent Christian voters. The pro-Hindu party is banking on them to wrest the seat from rival Congress, whose Anto Antony Punnathaniyil has represented it in India’s parliament for three terms since 2009.
Anil is the son of veteran Congress leader and former defense minister A. K. Antony, an octogenarian and self-professed agnostic. The father has often advocated the philosophy of Kerala’s foremost social reformer Sree Narayana Guru — a champion of equality and justice.
However, while it has propelled a Catholic in the southern state, the BJP has dropped John Barla, a tribal Catholic, who is serving as a junior minister for minority affairs in the present Modi cabinet.
Barla was elected in 2019 from Alipurduar constituency in West Bengal and has been championing the rights of tea garden workers in West Bengal and Assam states in eastern India.
Barla’s exclusion from the list of candidates came as a surprise to many in Delhi’s political circles as he was Modi’s go-to man in times of crisis, especially amid rising attacks on Christians and their institutions over the past few years.