THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: BJP candidate P. S. Sreedharan Pillai finishing third in Chengannur was more or less expected. With BDJS votes going in favour of the CPM's Saji Cherian, there was nothing he could do as the central BJP leadership did nothing to appease them. He could not even reach near his previous performance as he polled 7,412 fewer votes. The defeat was humiliating as he had put up a significant challenge to his rivals with 42,682 votes. This time it was a pale shadow of his previous performance with just 35,270 votes.
A sullen-faced Mr Pillai claimed that the Congress had transferred its votes to the CPM. “Mannar panchayat has always been a UDF stronghold. It is nothing less than a vote-trading," he said. "BJP will probe why our vote share dwindled in Mannar and Thiruvanvandoor.” A BJP insider said pumping in more than Rs 3 crore for campaigning and bringing in Union human resources minister Prakash Javadekar and Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb did not reap any benefits.
The hard work put in by Mr Pillai and the general convener M. T. Ramesh did not yield any results. On the fag end of the campaigning, Kummanam Rajasekharan was given a “decent exit” as Mizoram Governor, which did not go down well with the BJP and the RSS leaders. A top BJP leader said SNDP Yogam general secretary Vellappally Natesan had asked 70-plus SNDP unions to support Mr Cherian. Now the state BJP leadership is leaderless with many lobbying for it.
P. P. Mukundan, former BJP organising general secretary who remains ‘persona non grata’, said it's high time the party’s top brass decided to stop its nomination system. “If the organisation has to be made stronger, the central leadership should restructure the prevalent system,” he told Deccan Chronicle..
