THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state BJP plans to build a brand new office by demolishing Mararji Bhavan, the BJP state headquarters here. The existing building, the ancestral home of former bureaucrat S. Krishnakumar, was purchased from them by a trust headed by the then BJP president C. K. P. Padmanabhan in 1999.
Other trust members include O. Rajagopal, P. P. Mukundan, K. V. Sreedharan Master and K. Raman Pillai. But later, Mr. Padmanabhan and Mr. Pillai stepped down from the trust. The house, Krishnavilasam, has 13 rooms with an inner courtyard. The BJP leadership occupied the ancestral home only in 2000.
The new plan and estimate of Mararji Bhavan are yet to be finalised. At the recent BJP core committee meeting, the senior leaders of the party decided to go ahead with the proposal of having a state-of-the-art party office on the 55-cent property.
“It was Prof. Narayanan Nair, the then BJP treasurer who brokered the deal with Krishnakumar’s family. During my tenure it was decided to have a three- storeyed office building apart from a floor for car parking. The plan was also drawn up by a leading private architectural firm then. But unfortunately, the decision was delayed,” Mr Mukundan, former BJP organising general secretary who played a key role in the purchase of the house, told DC.
Those who are currently staying at the Mararji Bhavan are state president Kummanam Rajasekharan, organising general secretary K. Subhash and his senior colleague K. R. Umakanthan, who was recently ousted from the state committee, along with a few office staff. Over the years, the BJP leaders were keen to build a new office due to space constraints and the proposal was renewed during the tenures of former president P. K. Krishnadas and later Mr V. Muraleedheran.
The plan got a new impetus after Mr Narendra Modi government assumed office at the centre. A top BJP leader told DC that the BJP office would be soon shifted to its old three-storeyed election committee office at PMG Junction on rental basis. “Once the new office is constructed, it will be the venue for all party meetings and it will be the biggest party office in the state,” said a BJP leader.
