Thiruvananthapuram: With two essential elections across the nook—the 2025 native physique polls and 2026 meeting elections—Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s appointment as the brand new chief of Bharatiya Janata Get together’s Kerala unit displays the occasion’s rising aspirations within the state. Following his 2024 Lok Sabha efficiency, Chandrasekhar is ready to exchange Okay. Surendran, the occasion head in Kerala since 2020.
BJP’s Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha candidate in 2024, Chandrasekhar campaigned totally on the promise of ‘remodeling the constituency’ by way of IT and infrastructure improvement, elevating the occasion’s vote share within the constituency from 31.30 p.c in 2019 to 35.52 p.c. Although he misplaced to United Democratic Entrance’s Shashi Tharoor by 16,077 votes, he pushed the Left Democratic Entrance’s Pannyan Raveendran to the third spot—a feat for the BJP, which is but to make vital inroads in Kerala.
Senior BJP chief V. Muraleedharan informed the media that the choice to pick Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar was taken unanimously at a BJP core committee assembly Sunday in Thiruvananthapuram. “All senior leaders have signed his nomination paper. I don’t see any others submitting a nomination. However the official announcement will probably be made by [Union Minister] Pralhad Joshi tomorrow [Monday] on the occasion’s state committee assembly,” he informed the media after the assembly.
The BJP’s state occasion convention will probably be held Monday on the Uday Palace Conference Centre, Thiruvananthapuram.
Aside from the neck-and-neck Thiruvananthapuram battle, the BJP additionally clinched its first electoral victory within the Kerala Lok Sabha polls in 2024. Its candidate and actor-politician Suresh Gopi received towards the LDF and the UDF by profitable 74,686 votes. The occasion additionally noticed a big enhance in its vote share in Kerala from 13 p.c in 2019 to 16.68 per cent in 2024, in keeping with the Election Fee (EC) information.
With this wind beneath its wings, the BJP now hopes to determine its footprint within the state, changing into a big political participant. The occasion expects Chandrasekhar to cleared the path throughout Kerala, as he did in Thiruvananthapuram final yr.
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‘An experiment’
An entrepreneur and industrialist, Chandrasekhar was a Rajya Sabha MP from Karnataka thrice. Born to a Malayalee couple in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad, he additionally served because the minister of state for talent improvement and entrepreneurship in Modi 2.0 in 2021.
The BJP state vice chairman, advocate B. Gopalakrishnan, informed ThePrint that forward of the 2 elections, Chandrasekhar will turn into the face of the occasion when it tries to mission its roadmap for the “new Kerala”.
Kerala’s native physique polls are scheduled to be held by December this yr and the state will vote for the meeting polls in 2026.
In January this yr, the occasion did an organisational revamp appointing extra ladies, SC/ST members, and Christians as its functionaries in mandalam (native) committees.
“BJP likes to experiment in states. This collection of a brand new president can be part of it,” B. Gopalakrishnan stated, including that Chandrasekhar’s scant expertise in Kerala politics won’t have an effect on the occasion, which has a powerful cadre base prepared to work for these chosen by its management.
“It’s a leftist view that solely grassroots leaders might be occasion chief. Whoever is [our] occasion chief, [our] occasion cadre will stand with him. The BJP has a powerful cadre base,” Gopalakrishnan stated.
Although not a grassroots political chief, Chandrasekhar’s appointment can be coming amid the factionalism within the Kerala BJP unit, which had come to the fore throughout the essential Palakkad by-poll in November 2024.
The occasion, on the time, fielded C. Krishnakumar, an in depth aide of Okay. Surendran because the Palakkad candidate. The BJP had a excessive likelihood of profitable the seat because of the sturdy roots of the RSS. Nevertheless, Congress chief Rahul Mankoottathil received the seat, with 58,389 votes, pushing the BJP to the second spot, with solely 39,549 votes.
Following the loss, BJP nationwide council member N. Sivarajan and the Palakkad municipal chairperson Pramila Sasidharan publicly questioned Krishnakumar’s candidature. Days earlier than the polls, BJP chief Sandeep Varier too defected to the Congress on account of his rift with Surendran.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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