The core committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kerala is meeting in Kochi on Sunday amid a slew of controversies related to election campaign financing.
A State police investigation into the alleged movement and subsequent theft of the party’s ‘election funds’ at Kodakara in Thrissur threatened to drag the names of BJP State president K. Surendran and its star campaigner, actor Suresh Gopi, into its vortex.
Tribal leader C.K. Janu’s detractors in her party, the JRP, have accused Mr. Surendran of paying ₹10 lakh to woo her to the NDA. A contestant told journalists that he had received ₹2 lakh and a mobile phone to withdraw his ‘dummy’ candidature against the leader in Manjeswaram.
So far, few top leaders have come out openly in defence of Mr. Surendran, giving the impression that the party has largely left the State president to fend for himself.
The Congress and the CPI(M) have seized on the perceived disarray in the BJP. Congress MP K. Muraleedharan demanded a judicial inquiry into the BJP’s alleged use of the hawala route to move large amounts of campaign money under the radar of the election authorities. The CPI(M) had earlier accused the BJP of using black money to fuel its election campaign.
By some accounts, Mr. Surendran is likely to face criticism at the core committee meeting. He could also attempt to gain the committee’s backing by citing a Congress-CPI(M) axis to defame the BJP.
The BJP’s lacklustre showing in the 2021 Assembly elections is likely to weigh heavily on the meeting. The party had lost its only seat in Nemom and suffered a 4% erosion in its vote share.
Senior State leaders like O. Rajagopal, P.K. Krishnadas and Sobha Surendran have reportedly demanded a full accounting of the party’s poll debacle. Some of them had earlier questioned the alleged one-upmanship of the State leadership in candidate selection and fund allocation. A party insider said the purported rumblings of dissent in the BJP might find an echo in the core committee meeting, but any drastic fallout was unlikely.
