Thiruvananthapuram: Veteran BJP leader P. P. Mukundan has attacked the state BJP leadership heavily.
In an exclusive interview to DC, he alleged that the leadership could not cash in on the widespread support it received on the Sabarimala issue.
In a veiled attack on state president P. S. Sreedharan Pillai, Mr Mukundan alleged that the leadership lacked team spirit.
The two general secretaries, the fasting A.N. Radhakrishnan and imprisoned K. Surendran, were caught off guard when the 70-year-old Mukundettan, as his party supporters fondly call him, visited them.
Other senior leaders like former presidents V. Muraleedharan and Kummanam Rajasekharan had snubbed him on various occasions and sidelined in the party.
He warned Mr Surendran that a stint in prison could make or mar a politician's future.
He urged him to utilise his prison life by writing a book on the renaissance movement.
He criticised Mr Pillai's wavering stand on the women entry in Sabarimala citing the firm position of NSS general secretary G. Sukumaran Nair.
"The Sabarimala protest was not for temporary gains. Instead of kicking it off from Pathanamthitta, it should have begun from Thiruvananthapuram and sustained the initial tempo," he said.
"Mr Pillai should have consulted senior leaders in all the districts to chart out various strategies on the protest."
He feels that this is for the first time in the political history of Kerala women coming out in large numbers, against allowing women below 50 in Sabarimala, after the independence movement and then the Emergency. When women of all ages came to attend the namajapam protest across the state, he said, the BJP should have chalked out strategies for highlighting nationalism.
