THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: BJP state camp is all ears for the announcement from the central leadership on who is going to be the new state president. BJP national secretary in charge of Kerala, H. Raja will be holding a crucial meeting of the state BJP leaders on Friday to hear their views. Kummanam Rajasekharan, governor of Mizoram is in New Delhi until Wednesday to attend the governors' meet and has maintained a stoic silence due to protocol issues.
Though the venue of Mr Raja's meeting is yet to be finalized, it is most likely to be held in Kochi. A top state BJP leader told DC that the new president would be announced any time after this meeting with Mr Raja. He also informed that the new president would be an interim one so as to steer the party's preparations towards the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
"Mr Raja will be coming to the state on Friday where he will hold talks with the Kerala leaders to hear their views on who should come as the next president. Anyway, it will be an interim president for a year. But chances of the president continuing cannot be ruled out if the party performs well in the Lok Sabha elections", said the top BJP leader.
A party source from New Delhi revealed that a section within the state party leadership is doing all efforts to prevent R. Balasankar, former editor of 'Organiser' from becoming the next president. Apart from Balasankar, the hopefuls include state general secretaries M.T. Ramesh and K. Surendran. The dissident faction led by V. Muraleedharan, MP, is keen on projecting the next president from the OBC category.
"Since Mr Rajasekharan who has been deputed as the governor of Mizoram belongs to the Nair community, the dissident faction feels that it is ideal to project an OBC leader towards the post of the state BJP president. This is to project Surendran who belongs to the Ezhava community", said a BJP leader. RSS State joint organising secretary (Saha Karyavahak) M. Radhakrishnan has been summoned to New Delhi by BJP national president Amit Shah. He will be returning to the state only after attending the Sangh Shiksha Varg, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's most important annual function in Nagpur on June 7, which will see former President Pranab Mukherjee inaugurating it.
