The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is planning to form a new front against the Congress in Kerala, BJP State president V. Muraleedharan has said.
Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, Mr. Muraleedharan said a meeting of senior party leaders had been convened on May 23 to discuss the issue. The party was yet to decide on which parties to rope in, he said.
Mr. Muraleedharan said the UDF managed victory in the absence of a strong anti-Congress front in the State when the BJP was sweeping across the country. At the national-level, all those who were with the Congress were wiped out and the CPI(M) too suffered. He said analysis at the booth-level showed that the Congress ensured victory of Shashi Tharoor in the Thiruvananthapuram constituency with the support of communal forces. “We have decided to go ahead with legal steps against the pastoral meeting convened by Mr. Tharoor.”
Describing it as “disappointing” that no BJP candidate from the State made it to the Lok Sabha, Mr. Muraleedharan said the vote share of the party had gone up from 6.4 per cent in 2009 to 10.8 per cent in 2014.
The thumping victory of the BJP at the national-level was the people’s verdict against the anti-people policies of the UPA and an approval to the development agenda undertaken by Narendra Modi in Gujarat, he said.
