This talk will focus on a less-explored aspect of decentralization, which is the ways in which it creates political opportunities for the growth of political parties and movements previously considered fringe. Based on ten months of ethnographic research and 200 interviews in Kerala’s capital city of Trivandrum, this talk explores the ways in which the far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its Hindu nationalist affiliates expand their reach and influence in Kerala by engaging in the LSGs.