The decision of the BJP central leadership not to field former Mizoram governor Kummanam Rajasekharan for the by-election from a prestigious Assembly seat in Kerala has again underscored the growing differences between a section in the party and the RSS state unit.
The almost final-hour decision from Delhi has come as a shocker to the RSS camp which has made no effort to hide its displeasure. The decision has to a very large extent dampened the spirits of BJP workers in the state too.
The RSS had to coerce Rajasekharan, a reluctant contender, to agree to contest from the Vattiyoorkavu Assembly constituency in the capital Thiruvananthapuram before the BJP state committee formalised the list and forwarded it to the central leadership.
The BJP state unit was so sure of Kummanam’s candidature that party workers had already launched the first round of campaigning in Vattiyoorkavu which goes to polls along with four other constituencies in the state in October-end.
“I don’t know why I have been excluded... and I am not going to ask anyone,” Rajasekharan told reporters, adding he would follow whatever the party tells him to do.
Vattiyoorkavu is one of the Assembly segments in the Thiruvananthapuram parliamentary constituency from where Rajasekharan had lost to the Congress’s Shashi Tharoor in the May general election.
In the Lok Sabha elections, the RSS state unit had to persuade the BJP central leadership to relieve Kummanam from the governor’s post in Mizoram to contest against Tharoor.
Thiruvananthapuram topped the list among two to three constituencies from where the BJP, rather the RSS, was hoping to win in Kerala in the general election.
Kummanam fared badly, fetching fewer votes for the party than in 2014. The RSS, midway through the campaign, had blamed a section in the state BJP for undermining Kummanam’s chances in the constituency.
At that time, the accusing fingers were said to have been pointed at a faction within the state BJP headed by V. Muraleedharan, who is now junior foreign minister in the Narendra Modi government.
Kummanam, who does not belong to either faction in the state BJP — the other being the one led by P.K. Krishnadas who is now in charge of party affairs in Andhra Pradesh — was not on the best of terms with Muraleedharan during his tenure as president of the state BJP.
Kummanam was packed off from the state overnight, some say even without taking him into confidence, to Mizoram as governor in the middle of a by-election in 2018.
Then, too, the RSS had objected, again pointing to a section within the state BJP engineering Kummanam’s exit. Kummanam had no other choice but to follow the party diktat.
This time, it is said that a particular leader in Delhi who is close to the Prime Minister and his number two had pulled the strings against Kummanam.
Kummanam’s statement that “I don’t believe Muraleedharan had any hand in rejection of my candidature” added only fuel to the speculation.
The RSS has taken the decision as an affront against its organisational set-up in the state. “This is like waking up someone and telling him there is no dinner,” said one pracharak.
However, those in the know say that the BJP leadership in Delhi wants to free the state party from its over-dependence on RSS cadres.
In Kerala, the RSS is the backbone of the BJP, a factor not much to the liking of party president Amit Shah, who has been urging the party state leadership to firm up on its own.
The reality is that once the Sabarimala euphoria fizzled out, there is steady erosion in the ranks of the BJP in the state. In the just-concluded by-election in Pala, the party’s tally came down by over 6,000 votes.
With one of the NDA constituents, the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena, a Hindu community-based political outfit consciously promoted by the BJP, blowing hot and cold, the Hindutva party is a pale shadow of what it was immediately after Supreme Court judgment on Sabarimala allowing women of all ages to enter the temple.
