<p>The crime branch of Kerala police on Wednesday filed a charge sheet against <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/tag/bjp" target="_blank">BJP </a>Kerala state president K Surendran and five others in the election bribery case of Manjeshwar in Kasargod.</p>.<p>The charge sheet has come at a time when a section of the BJP in Kerala has been pressing for a leadership change, while another section was backing Surendran.</p>.<p>Surendran, who lost the 2021 Assembly elections at Manjeshwar in Kasargod, allegedly gave Rs. 2.5 lakh and a mobile phone to K Sundara, a BSP candidate, and forced him to withdraw the nomination.</p>.<p>A local court in Kasargod ordered the police probe in 2021 June based on a petition filed by left-front candidate V V Ramesh who came third in the election. Surendran, who lost by 89 votes in 2016, lost by 745 votes in 2021.</p>.<p>The others arraigned in the case are BJP leaders Manikanda Rai, Balakrishna Shetty, Y Suresh, Sunil Nail and Lokesh Londa. Various non-bailable sections of Indian Penal Code and SC-ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act were invoked against the accused.</p>.<p>BJP senior leaders including former state president Kummanam Rajasekharan reacted that a bogus case was framed against Surendran and the party would fight it legally. The party leaders also said that the left-front government was trying to divert attention from the allegations it was facing.</p>.<p>A section of the BJP in Kerala was strongly pressuring the party leadership to remove Surendran from the president's post. Former union minister Prakash Javadekar, who is now in charge of Kerala, has been holding a series of discussions with the party leaders in Kerala. Though Javadekar recently announced that there would not be a leadership change in the state unit, a section of the party was seeking leadership change citing the bad performance of the party in the last Assembly election.</p>
<p>The crime branch of Kerala police on Wednesday filed a charge sheet against <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/tag/bjp" target="_blank">BJP </a>Kerala state president K Surendran and five others in the election bribery case of Manjeshwar in Kasargod.</p>.<p>The charge sheet has come at a time when a section of the BJP in Kerala has been pressing for a leadership change, while another section was backing Surendran.</p>.<p>Surendran, who lost the 2021 Assembly elections at Manjeshwar in Kasargod, allegedly gave Rs. 2.5 lakh and a mobile phone to K Sundara, a BSP candidate, and forced him to withdraw the nomination.</p>.<p>A local court in Kasargod ordered the police probe in 2021 June based on a petition filed by left-front candidate V V Ramesh who came third in the election. Surendran, who lost by 89 votes in 2016, lost by 745 votes in 2021.</p>.<p>The others arraigned in the case are BJP leaders Manikanda Rai, Balakrishna Shetty, Y Suresh, Sunil Nail and Lokesh Londa. Various non-bailable sections of Indian Penal Code and SC-ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act were invoked against the accused.</p>.<p>BJP senior leaders including former state president Kummanam Rajasekharan reacted that a bogus case was framed against Surendran and the party would fight it legally. The party leaders also said that the left-front government was trying to divert attention from the allegations it was facing.</p>.<p>A section of the BJP in Kerala was strongly pressuring the party leadership to remove Surendran from the president's post. Former union minister Prakash Javadekar, who is now in charge of Kerala, has been holding a series of discussions with the party leaders in Kerala. Though Javadekar recently announced that there would not be a leadership change in the state unit, a section of the party was seeking leadership change citing the bad performance of the party in the last Assembly election.</p>
