The last nail has been driven into the coffin of Kerala BJP by a group of leaders including the party’s State president K Surendran. The fact that the group fighting, shadow boxing and the mutually assured destruction have come at a party time the BJP candidate C Krishnakumar was fighting the by-election from Palakkad scheduled for November 20. The infighting in the Congress and the CPI(M) over the selection of candidates has been eclipsed by the chaos in the Hindutva party.

The party’s state chief K Surendran faces a criminal case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in connection with the money heist from Vadakara alleged to have taken place during the 2021 assembly election. Unaccounted cash to the tune of Rs 3.5 crore which was being transported to the party’s Thrissur district office was waylaid by a group of people and taken away making one of the couriers in the vehicle to file a police complaint.

Though the police, after initial investigation, chose not to proceed with the case the Kerala High Court in a directive asked the cops to take up the case and investigate the same. Surendran had been grilled by the police in connection with the PMLA case which earned him the rare “distinction” of  becoming the one and only state chief of a national party to have been interrogated by the police in a criminal case.

Even as the police resumed the probe, a former office secretary of the Thrissur district BJP came out and declared that the waylaid money was unaccounted cash and was meant for distribution among the party candidates.

Meanwhile, Shobha Surendran, a party leader who has declared her intention to become the party president declared that a powerful group in the BJP was subverting her works in the party as they do not want her to remain in the BJP. She claimed she has a plan of action ready to ensure at least 25 party candidates would get elected to the legislative assembly in the 2026 election.

Along with Shobha Surendran, the BJP’s television spokesman Sandeep Varrier too has raised a flag of revolt questioning the propriety of Surendran’s continuation as party chief despite a series of failures in the parliamentary and assembly polls. The BJP failed to win at least a single seat in the 2021 assembly election. The party’s major achievement till date has been the 2016 victory of nonagenarian O Rajagopal from Nemam assembly constituency and that of Suresh Gopi in the 2024 Lok Sabha poll from Thrissur.

“The Palakkad poll had offered an opportunity to the party to open its account in the assembly. But the infighting and one- upmanship by leaders divided on caste lines is destroying the BJP in Kerala. Right now the party is under the control of the powerful Theeya community from Malabar. Surendran and V Muraleedharan are from this caste and both of them do not like the Eezhavas or Nairs and this is costing the party dear,” said Sudheer Damodaran, political observer and a former associate of Prashant Kishor told the Pioneer.