While the Kerala unit of the BJP was waging a “war” against the CPI(M)-led Government demanding the immediate resignation of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for his alleged role in gold smuggling scam, a popular woman leader of the Hindutva party has written to the Central leadership accusing the State-leadership of harassing and victimising her.
“I was the lone woman member of the core committee of the party and was the general secretary of the party till K Surendran was appointed as the party’s State president. He threw me out of the core committee though I had brought laurels to the BJP by mobilising more votes in all the elections I had contested as the party candidate. This is an attempt to politically annihilate me,” Shobha Surendran, who used to be a regular feature in channel debates and in the forefront of all agitations, said in a letter to national president J P Naddha and union Home Minister Amit Shah.
Shobha Surendran has been keeping a low profile since the re-organisation of the party by the national leadership. K Surendran, a camp follower of V Muraleedharan, minister of state for external affairs, is apprehensive of the possibility of Shobha Surendran eclipsing him in the race for top job in Kerala. Though the BJP is no force to reckon with in the State, groupism is in the party is galore and even worse than that of the Congress, according to political commentators.
Muraleedharan leads the Eezhava lobby while national secretary P K Krishna das heads the Nair lobby. Muraleedharan was nominated to Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra because the BJP cannot win a single seat on its own anywhere in the State.
“The party may be staging demonstrations across the State against Pinarayi Vijayan. The real test would be during the assembly elections when the group war will see to it that the party does not win even a single seat,” said a veteran BJP leader in Kerala.