V Muraleedharan is Kerala's face in Modi 2.0

_{Kerala has given a definite thumbs down to the BJP but prime minister Narendra Modi decided to include a top BJP leader from Kerala in his first list of cabinet ministers. Rajya Sabha MP V Muraleedharan has taken oath as a minister of state in the Narendra Modi's new cabinet.}

_{In 2018, when Muraleedahran was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra there were rumours that he may be given a berth in the cabinet.}

_{Even then, the choice of Muraleedharan this time, though he was a former state president and is one of the state's top leaders, came as a surprise.}

_{The expectation was that the call would go either to Kummanam Rajasekharan, because he was the most popular Sangh Parivar leader in the state after O Rajagopal, or Suresh Gopi, who is also a Rajya Sabha MP. He had also put up a creditable performance in Thrissur.}

_{Sources said the Modi-Shah duo settled on Muraleedharan after Kummanam requested that he be spared of the responsibility.}

_{Suresh Gopi was not preferred because he was still new in the organisation and his elevation could cause some misgivings within.}

_{Muraleedharan, it is said, has been picked for his organisational abilities.}

_{The party had frequently used him to mobilise grassroots workers in various parts of the country, especially in Maharashtra. He had kept Mumbai as his base, when he was ABVP national general secretary between 1994 and 1996.}

_{His student years had brought him close to other ABVP leaders, who then emerged as big leaders under the Narendra Modi dispensation.}

_{Notable among them were Ravi Shankar Prasad and Radha Mohan Singh, both from Bihar, and Prakash Javadekar, who was from Maharashtra.}

_{He also became close to seniors like Venkiah Naidu and Nitin Gadkari, both of whom came to the BJP through the ABVP. During the 1998 general election, which saw the BJP under Atal Behari Vajpayee emerging as the single largest party, Muraleedharan was chosen to assist Naidu at the BJP's central election control house in New Delhi.}

_{Since Muraleedharan began active politics during the Emergency in 1975, it had also brought him close to Dattatreya Hosabale, the third most important leader in RSS after Mohan Bhagwat and Bhayyaji Joshi. Dattatreya was incarcerated for 16 months during the Emergency.}

_{It is said that these connections had ensured him crucial positions in power since 1998. In 1999, for instance, he was appointed as the Vice Chairman of Nehru Yuva Kendra. He also became the chief coordinator of the committee chaired by the prime minister for celebrating the golden jubilee of Indian Republic in the year of 2000.}

_{In 2004, he was made the national convener of NGO cell of BJP. In 2005, he was made the all-India convener of BJP training cell.}

_{In 2010, he was made the state BJP president. It was also during his tenure that factionalism reared its head in the state unit of the BJP.}

_{Recently, the RSS was miffed with him for conspiring to remove Kummanam Rajasekharan as BJP chief and packing him off to Mizoram as governor.}

_{He used his RSS connections to calm tensions.}

_{Even during the latest election campaign, the Muraleedharan faction had remained a constant irritant for the state president P S Sreedahran Pillai. His style is so abrasive that he even boycotted certain meetings called by the state president durign the election campaign. Muraleedharan was apparently disappointed with the BJP's Sabarimala campaign.}

_{Despite his maverick ways, there is a large section of Sangh Parivar activists who valorise Murleedharan. It was during his tenure as state president that a shocked CPM leadership saw the mass exodus of its members to the BJP.}

_{Many also credit him for building the party from scratch, especially in North Kerala.}

_{In 1980, a young Muraleedharan was hounded by the CPM ministry under E K Nayanar for his links to the ABVP and the RSS.}

_{He was even jailed for two months. Politically this had worked in his favour because in retaliation, ABVP workers in Delhi had laid siege to E K Nayanar while he was on a visit to the national capital.}

_{The incident made him a national figure. Soon enough, in 1983 and when he was 25, Muraleedharan was elected the state organising secretary of the ABVP.}

_{In 2014, when there was a clear Modi wave, Muraleedharan had came close to winning the assembly elections from Kazhakuttam.}

_{The BJP cadres still believe that it was last-minute strategic voting that did him in; Muraleedharan came a close second.}