Journalism of Courage
Malayalam cinema’s action hero Suresh Gopi will make his electoral debut for the Bharatiya Janata Party from the Thrissur parliamentary constituency. Gopi, presently a Rajya Sabha MP nominated by the party, will begin campaigning in the central Kerala constituency from Wednesday and has limited time before the state goes to polls on April 23.
Gopi will be taking on LDF’s Rajaji Mathew Thomas and UDF’s TN Prathapan.
The BJP has high stakes in Thrissur which has a large section of Hindu Ezhava, Hindu Nair and Christian voters. Gopi belongs to the Nair community.
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The seat was earlier allocated to BJP ally BDJS which had nominated its chief Thushar Vellappally, who commands influence over the Ezhava community. But with the candidature of Rahul Gandhi from Wayanad, Thushar was asked by the BJP leadership to move to Wayanad to give him a tough fight. With Thrissur falling vacant, the BJP automatically claimed the seat and announced Gopi as its candidate.
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Even though Gopi was in the list of probable candidates for Thrissur, Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam seats, he had personally intimated the leadership to recuse him as he had a few more years in the upper House. On Tuesday, he was called to Delhi and personally asked to fight the election by BJP national president Amit Shah. Gopi has a lot of catching up to do as his rivals had begun their campaign weeks ago.
In the 2016 assembly elections, the BJP had done exceedingly well in several constituencies in Thrissur even though it was unable to win one. In some seats, it was able to double and triple it’s vote share at the cost of its rivals.
