Fresh row in BJP over pact with Congress

Alliance in Malayinkeezh grama panchayat to upstage LDF

A pact the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has stuck with the Congress to upstage the Left Democratic Front (LDF) at the Malayinkeezh grama panchayat in the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha segment is reported to have triggered a fresh row in the party.

Party sources told The Hindu that the State leadership was kept in the dark of the alliance with the Congress and now it had come in handy for the critics within the organisation to whip the incumbent for shoddy management of organisational affairs.

Complaints about lack of consultations and consensus on key organisational issues, including the Sabarimala agitation, had been raging within the BJP for a while and the alliance is being cited as a proof of its lack of control over district units.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] has flagged the tie-up as a proof of the tacit deal the Congress and the BJP have struck across the State to take on the LDF and points out that it has lend credence to the issues it has been raising for a while.

Thiruvananthapuram is one segment where the BJP hopes to register an impressive win and the alliance has rendered a jolt to the party gearing up to enter the race.

While claiming to have high stakes in the capital and hoping to cash in on the Sabarimala issue, the organisational machinery, as in many other districts, is reported to be in a shambles and the State leadership could not so far make any meaningful intervention to mend its ways.

More importantly, a section of the party leaders themselves had touted the names of prominent leaders, including Mizoram Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan, and a host of other national leaders and cultural personalities such as Mohanlal to be fielded as party candidate from the capital and the latest controversy has botched up all such moves.

Moreover, the LDF would raise the alliance in the capital as a political issue across the State and the BJP leaders would have a tough time handling it.

The issue has put the State leadership in a tight spot and it may resort to strong action against the Thiruvananthapuram unit .

But whether it would take the plunge before the elections or defer it till the dust and heat of the elections subsided was a matter of concern, sources said.