Crusader for Hindu cause Kummanam Rajasekharan on Saturday took charge as new president of the Kerala BJP. Senior party leaders and workers accorded a warm welcome to him as he arrived at Mararji Bhavan, BJP’s State headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram. Kummanam was declared as the new chief of Kerala BJP by party president Amit Shah in New Delhi on Friday.
“I don’t see the position as an ornament. It is a great responsibility,” Kummanam said after assuming office. “My task is to transform BJP into a big force in the State and lead it into victory in future tests of strength,” he said. Outgoing president V Muraleedharan, senior leaders PK Krishnadas and O Rajagopal and others were present at Mararji Bhavan to welcome him.
Claiming that the people of Kerala were fed up with the existing political situation, Kummanam said the BJP could make big gains by becoming their new hope. “The days ahead are days of good hope and victory. I am certain that I can work courageously to take the party to victory through unity, facing the challenges of contemporary politics,” he said.
Stating that he had been made the State BJP chief at a crucial political juncture, Kummanam said united efforts could ensure victory for the party in the Assembly election to be held next April-May. The decision to make Kummanam, a total Sangh man who had been working as Hindu Aikya Vedi general secretary, the State BJP chief was taken at a meeting of the party’s core committee in Delhi on Wednesday.
later, he told newsmen that the BJP would be contesting the Assembly election not just to “open account” as many were saying but to take the reins of the State administration. He stated he would try to bring value-based, creative politics back into the State, adding that the Congress and communists were responsible for the degeneration seen these days in Kerala politics.
Rejecting the criticism that the Kummanam was not even a member of the BJP and he was made the party’s State chief as per the plan of RSS to reap political benefits using Hindutwa, a senior BJP leader said such criticisms were meaningless and were being leveled mostly by communists who were sitting shocked at the growth the BJP had made in Kerala in a very short time.
Kummanam has taken over as the BJP’s Kerala chief at a time when the party, with the help of machinery of the entire Sangh Pariwar, is making an all-out effort for achieving big gains in the State Assembly in the 2016 after its brilliant performance in the civic election of November, by establishing unity among the various majority communities in the State.
The party has already embarked on this task as seen in the informal alliance it had struck with the SNDP Yogam, outfit of Hindu lower caste Ezhavas, for the local election. The leadership thinks that Kummanam, with the close links with various Hindu communities he has been keeping for the past several years, is the most suitable man for this mission.
Kummanam is known to keep warm relationship with SNDP Yogam of the Ezhavas as well as the Nair Service Society (NSS), outfit of Hindu upper caste Nairs. Ezhavas and Nairs constitute over 37 percent of the total population of Kerala. While the Yogam is already a friend of the BJP, the NSS is still keeping a distance from it. One of the main tasks of Kummanam will be to attract the NSS to the BJP.
However, a section of observers feels that the appointment of Kummanam, known as a Hindutwa hardliner, as BJP chief in the State could further alienate the minorities who constitute over 45 percent of the total population and cause their mass migration into the Congress-led UDF and CPI(M)-headed lDF. They point out that such a development had benefitted the left in the civic election.