Will BJP chief K Surendran opt for Manjeswaram or try his luck in Konni?

Bharath Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) an ally of Bharatiya Janata Party in Kerala has placed their demand that BJP state president K Surendran should contest from Konni constituency in Pathanamthitta district in the upcoming Kerala assembly election. K Padmakumar, the state president of BDJS, told the media that K Surendran could get a good number of votes from Pathanamthitta during the Lok Sabha polls and this would help him if he contests from Konni assembly constituency that falls under Pathanamthitta.

But many others in the BJP think that this wouldn't be a good idea. Though Surendran had led the BJP’s campaign against women entering Sabarimala in 2018,  he  lost from Pathanamthitta in 2019 and again in 2019 in the Konni bypolls.

The party believes that projecting Surendran as a Sabarimala belief protection 'crusader' did not help since he was an outsider in the constituency.

In the assembly bypoll, LDF’s Janeesh Kumar won from the Konni seat, where the Sabarimala Lord Ayyappa temple is located, with 54,099 votes. While UDF candidate P Mohanraj came second with 44,146 votes, Surendran could only poll 39,786 votes and came in third. But compared to BJP's performance in 2016 assembly polls at Konni, Surendran was able to get more than double the number of votes. Their candidate Ashok Kumar managed to get only 16,730 votes in 2016.

Until 2016, Konni was a UDF bastion, and Adoor Prakash continued as MLA for 23 years. Taking Konni away from UDF was a historic victory for the LDF.

However sources from BJP said that Surendran might contest from Manjeshwar constituency in Kasaragod district.

It was during the 2009 Loksabha polls that Surendran, who hails from Kozhikode district, first contested from Kasaragod. He managed to get 125482 votes, which was the best performance by the BJP compared to previous years. In the 2011 assembly polls he was a candidate from Manjeshwar constituency where he lost by 5,828 votes. In 2016 polls,  he had lost from this same seat by just 89 votes.