The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) brought to its fold, arguably, a motley group of Congress discontents in Kerala on March 14. Notably, the desertions came on the eve of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s fifth campaign foray into Kerala this year.
On March 15, Mr. Modi is scheduled to address an election rally in Pathanamthitta where another high-profile Congress defector, Anil K. Antony, is fighting under the BJP banner.
The Congress members who joined the BJP at a function in Thiruvananthapuram on March 14 have a relatively less prominent public profile than Mr. Antony and Padmaja Venugopal, scions of two prominent Congress families and children of former Chief Ministers who defected to the BJP earlier.
The latest Congress deserters to the BJP include Padmini Thomas, the 1982 Asian Games medalist and Arjuna Award winner, and former municipal counsellor Thampanoor Satheesh. Ms. Thomas was president of the Kerala State Sports Council in a former Congress disposition.
For his part, Mr. Satheesh recently voiced discontent with the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) leadership. He accused the KPCC of sidelining and excluding him from essential party posts.
Mr. Satheesh, a staunch K. Karunakaran group insider, is widely reckoned to be a loyalist of Padmaja Venugopal.
The BJP reportedly viewed Mr. Satheesh as a prize catch in Thiruvananthapuram, given his grassroots-level connection with constituents and ordinary Congress workers.
Importantly for the BJP, Ms. Thomas and Mr. Satheesh hail from the Christian Nadar and Nair communities, two crucial electoral blocs in the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency, respectively.
Notably, Union Minister of State for IT and BJP candidate in Thiruvananthapuram, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, welcomed the Congress leaders to the party’s fold.
Vishnupuram Chandrasekharan, a BJP leader and chairperson of the Vaikunda Swamy Dharma Pracharana Sabha, a politically influential backward-class social organisation, was also present.
More crossovers: Surendran
BJP Kerala State president K. Surendran portrayed the Congress as a party “on the decline nationwide” and said that more crossovers were in the offing.
KPCC acting president M. M. Hassan said the BJP had collected “lustreless, ageing, and unpolished brass artefacts as political trophies for Mr. Modi.”
The trickle of Congress workers to the BJP has put the party in an awkward position at the hustings.
The CPI(M) has weaponised the defections to portray itself as the sole safe harbour for minorities and secularists wary of the BJP’s ascendancy.
