For the first time in the recent times, senior State BJP leaders, who regularly contested the Assembly and Parliamentary polls in the past, are not in the fray. Group rivalry within the party, the RSS upper hand in the candidate selection, and sharing of five seats with alliance partners are, according to insiders, some of the reasons.
The Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), the second largest partner in the Kerala NDA, has cornered four seats while the Kerala Congress led by P.C. Thomas secured one. So the BJP was left with only 15 seats in the State.
Senior leader O. Rajagopal has never missed a Lok Sabha election, but the 90-year-old veteran, who is now the MLA from Nemom, is out of Parliamentary contest. Of course, the BJP has nationally kept out all oldies including L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi.
Party State president P.S. Sreedharan Pillai, who earlier had an eye on Thiruvananthapuram seat, later zeroed in on Pathanamthitta when Kummanam Rajasekharan, who resigned as Governor of Mizoram, was fielded in Thiruvananthapuram. But when the national leadership offered the Pathanamthitta ticket to State general secretary K. Surendran after much delay that caused embarrassment to the cadre, Mr. Pillai confined himself to leading the party’s State unit.
Another party general secretary M.T. Ramesh, who last time contested the Pathanamthitta Lok sabha seat and garnered nearly 1.40 lakh votes, is not in the electoral scene. So also, party vice president K.P. Sreeshan, who contested from Thrissur constituency in 2014, is not a contender from anywhere. Another vice president P.M. Velayudan and spokesperson B. Gopalakrishnan face the same fate.
Former presidents — V. Muraleedharan and P.K. Krishnadas — who are leading the two factions in the BJP, were candidates for several years. Both are now in charge of the party affairs in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh respectively. Besides, Mr. Muraleedharan is now a Rajya Sabha MP.