FORTY-NINE-YEAR-OLD V V Rajesh on Friday entered record books as the first Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader to become Mayor of the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, marking a watershed moment in Kerala’s political landscape. While Rajesh on Friday won with 51 votes, the CPI(M) led Left candidate R P Shivaji got 29, and the Congress-led UDF and former legislator K S Sabarinathan secured 19 votes, and one independent councillor abstained from the voting. Rajesh now joins a short list of BJP trailblazers in Kerala, after O Rajagopal, the party’s first MLA in 2016, and actor-turned-politician Suresh Gopi, who became the BJP’s first LS MP from the State in 2024. Rajesh’s mayoralty signals a new chapter for the BJP in Kerala’s urban politics. The breakthrough came when the BJP-led NDA secured the support of independent