Kerala's first woman IPS officer among BJP's revamped state leadership

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala's first woman IPS officer R Sreelekha is among the ten vice presidents of BJP's Kerala unit, which underwent a revamp on Friday. Senior leaders M T Ramesh and Shobha Surendran are among the four general secretaries.

The revamp after Rajeev Chandrasekar took over as the state president happened just ahead of party's top leader and Union Home Minister Amit Shah's Thiruvananthapuram visit to kick off the works for the upcoming local body election and the following assembly elections.

Shah will inaugurate the new party state headquarters building in Thiruvananthapuram and address a meeting of party leaders on Saturday. Around 30,000 grassroot level leaders are expected to participate in the event that will mark the beginning of campaigning for the local body elections expected this year. He will also have closed door interactions with party top leaders, including the new state office bearers.

Apart from Shobha Surendran and Ramesh, the two other general secretaries are S Suresh and Anoop Antony Joseph, who are known to be close to Rajeeev Chandrasekhar.

Besides Sreelekha, other vice-presidents include Shone George, who is the son of former leader of regional party Kerala Congress P C George. Both of them joined the BJP last year.

Sreelekha, who joined the BJP last year, is a 1987-batch officer. She retired from Director General of Police (DGP) rank. Another former Kerala IPS officer Jacob Thomas, who also retired from DGP rank, had earlier joined the BJP.

The revamp might not go down well with former party president K Surendran and former union minister V Muraleedharan as those close to them did not get prominent places.

The elevation of Sobha as general secretary assumed much significance as she was allegedly being sidelined by Surendran during his term as party state president.

Party leader C Krishnakumar, who was serving as general secretary, is now made a vice-president. He was said to be close to Surendran.