The BJP will seek explanation from senior leaders of the party in the State on their absence at meetings of party’s core committee on Wednesday and State office-bearers on Thursday.
Of the 28 office-bearers, only 18 attended the meeting on Thursday. Those who kept away from the meetings included former State presidents of the party P.S. Sreedharan Pillai, C.K. Padmanabhan and P.K. Krishnadas, besides senior leaders M.T. Ramesh, K.P. Sreesan and A.N. Radhakrishnan.
A cold war has been brewing for some time between the official leadership led by State president V. Muraleedharan and these leaders over what is termed as unilateral decisions of the State president. This had intensified with Mr. Muraleedharan’s move to seek re-election.
The office-bearer’s meet decided to take out marches to the offices of the State Electricity Board on July 30 in protest against the increase in power tariffs. Torchlight demonstrations would be held on Thursday and Friday.
Party spokesman George Kurian said the tariff hike was the result of ineptness of the government. The government had failed to commission new power projects, reduce transmission loss, and collect arrears of tariff. It was the first time that a tariff hike was being effected with retrospective effect.
The spokesman told the media that the State committee of the party, meeting on August 12, would finalise agitation programmes against the dominance of the Muslim League in the education sector.
It wanted scholarships to be provided to all students who were socially and financially backward, and not limited to minorities. The party would observe August 15 as anti-terrorist day.
Mr. Kurian said the CPI(M) and the government were trying to undermine the CBI investigation in the Kaviyoor sex scandal case. The CBI had changed its version on who had raped Anagha and had listed only Latha Nair as the accused. The investigation in the Abhaya case was also being undermined.
