With the factionalism in the Kerala unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party coming into the open more intensely, the Central leadership of the party is giving a serious thought to rejigging the organisational set-up in State.
The intervention of the Central leadership comes close on the heels of State vice president Shobha Surendran shooting off a protest letter seeking the removal of State president K. Surendran for his “dictatorial style” of functioning and “poor performance” of the party in the local body election.
Besides, former president and national executive committee member P.K. Krishna Das called up the BJP president to apprise him of the situation in Kerala.
Realistic assessment
The four big decision makers of the party — Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, president J.P. Nadda, and general secretary (organisation) B.L. Santhosh — will examine the performance of the party and make a realistic assessment to face the challenges of the Assembly polls.
Ineffective electoral strategy, selection of candidates, factionalism, acrimonious infighting, and failure to convey the Central schemes to the electorate led to the dismal performance of the party at the hustings.
All decisions on the matter would be taken in the first week of January, sources said.
500 seats lost
A senior party functionary in New Delhi told The Hindu on Friday that the performance of the BJP had been gloomy even though the party secured about 14% of the total votes polled in the election.
Though the party individually won about 1,600 seats, it also lost over 500 seats that its nominees had won in the 2015 polls.
Also, before the polls, the State leadership painted a rosy picture for the Central leaders that the party would come to power in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation and form the ruling councils in Thrissur and Kozhikode Corporations, emerge victorious in 10 municipalities and block panchayats, and another 200 grama panchayats. All these calculations have now fallen flat.
Over 15 years
The Central leadership, the sources said, was of the view that the BJP leadership in the State had only seen the party’s growth in terms of arithmetic progression and not geometrical progression over the past 15 years.
The factions led by Mr. Krishna Das and also Minister of State for External Affairs V. Muraleedharan all these years indulged in carving a niche for themselves within the organisational apparatus rather than preparing the party to take on the established coalitions, the sources said.
