BJP sacks Kerala spokesperson Sandeep Varier

The Kerala unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has sacked its state spokesperson Sandeep G Varier of his post, on Monday, October 10. The decision was announced by the state party president K Surendran during the party’s committee meeting held in Kottayam. “The party has certain ideas on how a spokesperson should behave. Based on that he has been removed from the post of party’s spokesperson for organisational reasons,” he said.

When questioned further about the several allegations against Sandeep, the party president refused to answer stating that it was an in-party issue.

According to reports, district committee members from Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode raised a complaint against Sandeep alleging that he defrauded money using the name of the party.

Sandeep was made the party’s spokesperson in March 2020. During the ‘spit-free food’ hate campaign, Sandeep had put up a Facebook post supporting the hotels in the Halal row but later deleted it. The facebook post had said, “Hindus and Muslims cannot survive by economically boycotting each other.”

Sandeep was an active face appearing on television channel debates and was vocal on social media.

Surendran in his press meet also went on to criticise the foreign trips of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and other Ministers. "The current foreign trips are completely unnecessary in our opinion. This is an attempt to steal from the government treasury and it is clear that no good will come out of these trips for the people of Kerala," he said. The BJP state president also went on to add that there were several developmental activities taking place in neighbouring states such as Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Goa.