Kasaragod: BJP Kerala unit president K Surendran, who is in the eye of a storm following the Kodakara blackmoney case, is in for a bigger trouble now.

On Monday, Badiadka Police registered a case (Crime Number 193/ 2021) against Surendran over bribery allegations.

The development came a few hours after the Judicial First Class Magistrate in Kasaragod gave a go-ahead to police to take legal actions against Surendran.

The charge was that Surendran, who unsuccessfully contested the election from Manjeshwar constituency, bribed Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate K Sundara to withdraw from the poll fray.

Sundara recently told the media that the BJP leader gave him Rs 2.5 lakh and a new mobile phone to withdraw from the contest. He was also offered licence to start a wine and beer parlour in Mangaluru in Karnataka if Surendran won the election.

The offer was made as the BJP leadership thought Sundara may garner party votes because of the similarity of his name with that of Surendran. The fear was not unfounded as Sundara had bagged 467 votes in 2016 election when Surendran lost to United Democratic Front (UDF) candidate PB Abdul Razk by just 89 votes.

This time, Surendran was engaged in a tough contest with United Democratic Front candidate and eventual winner A K M Ashraf and Left Democratic Front (LDF) candidate V V Ramesan. Surendran lost by 1,143 votes.

Ashraf got 65,758 votes while Surendran bagged 65,013 votes and Rameshan logged 40,639 votes.

Ramesan moves court

The court’s directive came after LDF candidate Ramesan approached the court with a plea to register bribery charges against Surendran.

Ramesan's advocate C Shukkoor said the charges are serious as Surendran was involved in a conspiracy to scuttle democracy. "It was nothing but an effort to scuttle democracy," he said.

Ramesan had earlier filed a complaint with the Superintendent of Police and Kasaragod District Collector.

Based on it, Badiyadka police recorded a statement of Sundara and filed the report in the court on Monday.

"We have recorded the statement of Sundara. He said he was threatened by the BJP workers to withdraw the nomination papers. Also, he said he was offered money and that he had accepted it," the police said.

Sundara episode

Sundara told television channels that he had withdrawn his nomination after being threatened by the BJP workers.

"A day after I filed the nomination papers, BJP workers came to my house and asked me to withdraw the nomination. They gave me the amount in cash," he said.

Sundara pulled out from the fray and joined BJP on March 22. BJP had widely circulated the photos of Sundara sharing the dias with the party leaders.