What AK Antony's son Anil Antony brings to the BJP

Just when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is making all-out efforts to woo Christian voters in Kerala, Anil Antony, the son of Congress veteran and former defence minister AK Antony, has joined the party. Anil had distanced from the Congress in January and later resigned from the party. He was expected to join the BJP.

Why did Anil Antony leave the Congress?
Anil's problems with the Congress began with a tweet in January. He kicked off a storm in Kerala politics by criticising the BBC for its controversial documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the chief minister. Anil said that placing the views of the British broadcaster over Indian institutions would undermine the country's sovereignty. He said despite large differences with the BJP, those who support and place the views of the British broadcaster and of former UK foreign secretary Jack Straw, the "brain behind the Iraq war," over Indian institutions, were setting a dangerous precedent.

Anil was criticised by the state Congress leaders for siding with Modi. After an uproar over his tweet, Anil resigned from his posts in KPCC Digital Media and AICC Social Media and Digital Communications Cell.

What does Anil Antony bring to the BJP?
Anil's entry in the BJP is a big embarrassment for the Congress and possibly a future setback too. Anil himself may not be a tall leader but his importance lies in his being the son of a senior Congress leader who is seen as a trusted advisor of Sonia Gandhi. Antony has left electoral politics but he is still a core group member of the All India Congress Committee along with party stalwarts P. Chidamabram, Ashok Gehlot, Randeep Surjewala, Jairam Ramesh and KC Venugopal. He is also the chairman of the party's disciplinary committee.

Reacting to his son joining the BJP, Antony said his decision had pained him. He said after Modi took over in 2014, the basic tenets of Indian democracy, which centered around secularism and pluralism, were affected. "And after he took over in his second term, this got speeded up and is centring around autocracy. For me, till my last breath I will be fighting the BJP and the RSS. I have been close to the Nehru family, even though at one point of time I had to split with them, once I returned after a while, my love and respect towards the Nehru family has been steadfast and increased hugely," said Antony.

Probably, Anil quit the Congress after long-drawn issues and not just due to one tweet. Nearly a month before Anil tweeted against the BBC documentary, his father too made a controversial statement. Speaking at a party function in Kerala, AK Antony said the Congress should rally Hindus also as the party needed the support of both minority and majority communities in its fight against Modi.

Speaking in Malayalam, he said, ""Here, Muslims can go to mosques. Christians can go to churches. But when Hindu friends go to a temple or apply tilak, it's labelled as soft Hindutva." He added if this attitude is practiced, it would help Modi come back to power.

Son of a senior Congress leader joining the party is a big score for the BJP which is trying to build its base in Kerala. That he happens to be Christian is an added benefit as the party has started a massive outreach to the Christian community in Kerala. The BJP has very few well-known Christian leaders in the state besides its spokesperson Tom Vadakkan and former Union minister KJ Alphons.

The BJP's Christian outreach in Kerala
From gifting cakes during Christmas, last year to plans to celebrate upcoming Easter by visiting homes of Christians in Kerala, the BJP has stepped up efforts to woo the Christian community in Kerala, from where the party has never won a single Lok Sabha seat. The BJP has chalked out a plan to reach out to 100,000 Christian families during Easter.

Union minister V. Muraleedharan and the party's senior leader from Kerala said the purpose of this exercise is to establish connection with Christians in the state, where both the CPI (M) and the Congress have always tried to portray BJP as :anti-minority". "Now we are directly reaching out to them, so that they get to know BJP directly from the party itself. And we can connect with them," he told ET recently.

The BJP has been warming up to the church leaders in the state. Bishop Baselios Marthoma Mathews of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Wednesday and extended him an invitation to visit his church headquarters in Kerala when he visits the state next. The Bishop said that the Centre was trying to sort out problems faced by minorities, Mathews' church claims to have around 25 lakh followers in southern Kerala.

Recently, Thalassery Archbishop Mar Joseph Pamplany of the influential Syro-Malabar Catholic Church created ripples in Kerala politics by saying that if the Centre promised to increase the price of rubber procurement to Rs 300 per kilogram, the BJP will certainly get an MP from Kerala.

The sentiment for the BJP in the Christian community is slowly changing. “There was a time when we could emphatically say that the BJP
won’t win seats in Kerala or form a government here. The current socio-political circumstances will bar one from making such statements with conviction. I would say anything could happen after the 2026 assembly election,” political analyst and former Kerala University pro-vice chancellor J Prabhash told TOI recently.

“The statement of Pamplany and the like and the manner the CPM [Communist Party of India (Marxist)] and the Congress leadership respond to it indicate the growing acceptability of the saffron party in Kerala.”