The BJP’s surprise victory in Thrissur has triggered a blame game with local Youth Congress leaders accusing their seniors, including the district president and a former MP, of opening the doors to the archrivals in Kerala.
State Youth Congress functionaries Mohammed Hashim, Abimon Thomas, Mohammed Sarooq and Kavya Ranjith blamed Thrissur district Congress president Jose Valloor and former MP T.N. Prathapan for the BJP’s shock victory.
“The district leadership is responsible for the people’s dissatisfaction with the Congress,” the Youth Congress leaders told reporters, as the party circled up to take stock of the situation that led to the BJP wresting the prestigious seat from them.
On the other hand, state CPM secretary M.V. Govindan questioned the shift of Congress votes in Thrissur. “When the LDF gained 16,000-odd votes, the Congress lost 86,000-odd votes and Suresh Gopi won by 74,000-odd votes. Now you do the maths,” he said.
The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) that won 19 of the 20 seats in the state lost Thrissur to the BJP’s Gopi by 74,686 votes. The party that held the seat for so long slipped to the third position, losing 86,965 votes compared to 2019.
Gopi, who had finished third in the 2019 elections, stunned the LDF and UDF by winning the central Kerala constituency polling 4,12,338 votes, about 1,18,516 more than his 2019 tally.
The allegations within the Congress emerged after posters appeared in several parts of the constituency against Prathapan and Valloor, warning that the former MP would never be allowed to contest even a local body election.
The Congress had replaced a reluctant Prathapan, who had won by a comfortable margin in 2019, with K. Muraleedharan after his sister Padmaja Venugopal joined the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha Elections.
While Muraleedharan was the incumbent MP from Vadakara and was set to seek re-election from the seat, the last-minute decision to field him from Thrissur was attributed to Padmaja’s shift to the BJP, a counter-productive move by the Congress that resulted in a heavy loss for the party.
In the aftermath of the defeat on Tuesday, an emotional Muraleedharan said he would never contest another election. He even said the party shouldn’t have sacrificed him by shifting him to Thrissur.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi had personally campaigned for Gopi and chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan for LDF’s V.S. Sunil Kumar, Muraleedharan said no senior leader was behind him.
With Gopi’s victory, Kerala lost its longstanding reputation as one of the tallest barricades holding the BJP from setting foot in the state. Only the neighbouring Tamil Nadu maintained it by denying a single seat to the BJP.
State CPI secretary Binoy Viswam admitted that even the LDF has to examine the reasons behind its poor show but sought to know where the Congress votes went. “What happened to the UDF votes in Thrissur? Like us, the Congress too should examine this defeat,” Viswam said.
