BJP Kerala unit president K Surendran.
Credit: X/@surendranbjp
Thiruvananthapuram: Amidst resentment brewing in the BJP in Kerala following the setback for the party in the Palakkad assembly by-poll, there are reports that party state president K Surendran has offered to step down taking moral responsibility.
As per reports Surendran communicated to the party national leadership that he would step down. He also reportedly gave a complaint against party senior woman leader Sobha Surendran and some local leaders of Palakkad accusing them of working against the party's interest.
Reacting to reports, BJP national leader in charge of Kerala and former union minister Prakash Javadekar told DH, "nothing like that." He further added, "neither Palakkad nor Chelakkara (the two assembly seats that now went to by-poll) were BJP's sitting seats. We are trying to improve our performance in the next local body and assembly elections," he said.
Surendran later told reporters that as state president he was owning up the entire responsibility over any setback in candidate selection to the election outcome. He also said that it was for the party leadership to decide whether he should step down now or continue till the end of his term.
The resentment in the party is likely to come up in a leadership meeting to be held on Tuesday. Many local leaders from Palakkad had openly aired their resentment over selection of party state general secretary C Krishnakumar as party candidate.
BJP, which was considering the Palakkad seat as one with high victory chances, suffered 6.7 percent drop in vote share - from 35.34 percent in 2021 to 28.63 percent this time. While BJP candidate 'Metro man' E Sreedharan lost by just 3,859 votes in 2021, Krishnakumar, who is a prominent leader of Palakkad, lost by 18,840 seats to Congress young firebrand leader Rahul Mamkoothathil.
Krishnakumar was made the candidate ignoring the strong demand to field Sobha Surendran. BJP's vote share in Palakkad had witnessed a steep increase from 19.86 percent to 29.08 percent in 2016 when Sobha contested. The saffron party had also come to the second place by pushing CPM to the third place. Since then Palakkad was being considered as one of the most hopeful seats of BJP. Moreover, BJP is having majority in Palakkad municipality.
A section of district leaders of the party had openly expressed their resentment over ignoring Sobha and fielding Krishnakumar, who is often accused of trying to have a monopoly in the district. Even the party's prominent leader from Palakkad Sandeep Varrier had quit the party and joined the Congress after criticizing Krishnakumar and Surendran.
While a nearly six percent increase in vote share at CPM's stronghold Chelakkara is a relief for BJP. Though the party's vote share at Wayanad Lok Sabha seat went down by 1.5 percent, the party polled more votes than CPI candidate in many parts of Wayanad.