Faction feuds, blame game in Kerala BJP

Sources said BJP state secretary Sobha Surendran has written to Amit Shah, alleging that BJP’s former Palakkad district president C Krishnakumar had worked for her defeat in Palakkad seat. Sobha did not respond to calls.

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Sources also said that former state unit president P S Sreedharan Pillai, who has reportedly expressed displeasure with non-cooperation of Kerala BJP leaders, is likely to write to the national leadership with his complaints.

Pointing out that BJP’s votes are up from 4 per cent in 2011 to 30 per cent this time in Chengannur, the seat he contested from, Pillai told the The Indian Express, “All factors were in my favour. But of 17,000 Muslim votes, 10,000 went en masse to the Left.” Pillai also said that he could have won if PM Narendra Modi had campaigned in his seat. “(But) I was not so lucky,” he added.

Several leaders pointed out that the state leadership’s strategies had boomeranged. A senior leader said: “Candidate selection in seats considered A-plus (possible winning seats) went wrong because outsiders were fielded.”

A Kerala BJP leader said the party had refused ticket to leaders such as Ashok Kumar, a popular corporator in Thiruvananthapuram, and instead made cricketer Sreesanth, who belongs to Ernakulam district, contest from the prestigious Thiruvananthapuram central constituency.

There were also murmurs over the way the party “flaunted” Vellappally Natesan, the leader of SNDP Yogam, parent organisation of NDA ally Bharat Dharma Jena Sena. “This irked leaders of NSS (an outfit of Nairs),” the leader said.