Shashi Tharoor said the only way the BJP can get double digits in Kerala in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections is if both digits are zero; otherwise, they will be limited to one digit which is also zero. The comment came a day after Narendra Modi said in Thiruvananthapuram that the BJP would win double-digit seats in 2024. The BJP has no seat in Kerala while the Congress in 2019 won 15 out of 20 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

“As far as Kerala is concerned, communalism cannot go beyond a very small limit and we have seen the BJP reach that limit. Two successive elections, their vote percentage were 12% and 13%. I’ll give Mr Modi credit that under him, the BJP went from a six per cent party to a 12-13 per cent party under him but that’s it. I think the ceiling has been reached. And unless they come with a more convincing appeal to the people of Kerala — we know they tried to reach out to the Christian community but after what happened in Manipur, there is very little receptivity to this kind of message,” Tharoor said.

“The issue with the BJP is that they don’t understand Kerala- its culture and history. We have had more than 2,000 years of living together, amicably. Our relationship with each of the major faiths is one of welcome and acceptance… The problem with the North is that they think their history is the only history…” Shashi Tharoor said.

“Today, Jews tell me this is the only Jewish Diaspora that never knew a single instance of anti-Semitic persecution in the world. Similarly, Christianity came with St Thomas, St Thomas of the apostles, it was again welcomed and spread,” Tharoor said.

“Then we had Islam coming, not by the sword. You see, the problem in the north is that they think their history is the only history. We have traders from the Arab world coming to Kerala centuries before the Prophet, and they brought the message of the Prophet as news from their peninsula,” Tharoor added.

In a swipe at temple-mosque feud in Mathura, Varanasi, Tharoor said, “Now we’re not going to have a situation where some Hindu movement comes and says this used to be a temple and we want to knock down the mosque, we won’t tolerate it, and that’s not the way we behave.”