Thrissur: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is gearing up for a tough three-cornered battle in Kerala in the Lok Sabha elections in 2019. The party is likely to field state general secretary K Surendran in the Thrissur Lok Sabha seat.
However, Surendran, who lost the Manjeshwaram assembly seat in his bastion Kasaragod by a whisker in the 2016, faces an uphill task as he moves to the Thrissur Lok Sabha constituency where he would have to start from the scratch. But Surendran as well as the BJP are in no dearth of optimism because the BJP has been able to bolster its organisational base in the district. The party was also able to make a significant improvement in their vote share in the 2016 assembly election in comparison with the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
The party believes that all that it now needs is a strong candidate.
Surendran is enjoying a wider popularity now with his involvement in the Sabarimala agitation. He was arrested and jailed, and was let out on bail after several days.
The BJP hopes to attract votes from the Nair community with the support of Nair Service Society (NSS), which has been up in arms against the LDF government's decision to implement the Supreme Court order that allowed women of all age groups to enter Sabarimala temple. The BJP also hopes to cash in on Ezhava votes too, with the support of the NDA ally, Bharath Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS).
The party has never reached the second position in any of the seven assembly segments in the Thrissur Lok Sabha constituency – Thrissur, Ollur, Puthukkad, Nattika, Manalur, Guruvayur and Irinjalakkuda.
Both the ruling LDF in Kerala and the opposition UDF are weighing community-based options before making a final decision on candidates. C N Jayadevan of the CPI won the 2014 elections. Jayadevan who had secured 3,89,209 votes had defeated his nearest rival, Congress' K P Dhanapalan, by 38,227 votes. The BJP's K P Sreeshan had secured 1,02,681 votes, which in 'vote share' terms was an improvement by nearly 5 per cent over the previous LS polls.
The BJP leadership believes Surendran's entry would topple the plans of its rivals.
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