BJP State president V. Muraleedharan said here on Friday that the UDF had won the by-election from Neyyattinkara because of the backing of supporters of Opposition Leader V. S. Achuthanandan.
It was part of a quid pro quo arrangement in which the government froze the vigilance investigation into the cases against the son of Mr. Achuthanandan and Mr. Achuthanandan decided not to file an appeal against Chief Minister Oommen Chandy in the palmolein case. In addition, Nadar Christian consolidation against possible win by the BJP had helped the UDF besides the CPI (M) tirade against the slain RMP leader T. P. Chandrasekharan, he said.
The State president added that the results could not be considered as recognition for the UDF government as its votes share had dropped from about 43 per cent in the Assembly elections in 2011 to about 40 per cent now. Its support diminished by three percentage points in about a year.
Mr. Muraleedharan said that the results showed the correctness of BJP’s political stand against the Congress giving in to pressure tactics of the Muslim League. If the Congress did not heed the warning given by the voters, it would suffer further setbacks.
He said that the BJP had hoped to win with votes of LDF and UDF supporters. While the party got LDF votes, it failed to get sufficient UDF votes because of the Chandsekharan factor. The stand of the NSS and the SNDP had indirectly helped the BJP. The organisational capability of the BJP and the personality of O. Rajagopal, besides the political situation, had helped it to win more than 30000 votes.
