Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State president P.S. Sreedharan Pillai on Friday said he had not submitted the primary list of party candidates for the Lok Sabha elections before the party central leadership.
Refuting reports that he had handed over a list of possible candidates for the Lok Sabha seats in the State, Mr. Pillai said the BJP national leadership would take a final decision on the candidates.
Stating that he did not visit New Delhi to submit the list, Mr. Pillai said he had no idea about the criticism from within the party on the lack of adequate consultations before finalising the list of party candidates. It was up to the Bharath Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), an ally of BJP in the State, to decide whether its leader Thushar Vellappally would contest the elections.
Poll panel not met
Reports had suggested that a section of party leaders had expressed their displeasure to the national leadership over the lack of consultations before finalising the candidates.
They had pointed out that the State election committee had not been convened before arriving at a list of possible candidates. The core committee had also not held proper discussions on the list of probable candidates, they said.
The differences within the State leadership of the party were evident as V. Muraleedharan, C.K. Padmanabhan, and K. Surendran, stayed away from the core committee meet of the party here on Friday under the leadership of P. Muralidhar Rao, BJP general secretary in-charge of Kerala.