Kerala BJP chief K. Surendran has again found himself in the thick of poll payoff allegations with a Bahujan Samaj Party nominee accusing him of getting him to pull out of the race in Manjeshwar in exchange for Rs 2.5 lakh, a cellphone and the promise of a wine shop.

K. Sundara, the BSP nominee for the Manjeshwar seat in Kasaragod district, which Surendran eventually contested, had withdrawn his nomination papers on March 22 and immediately joined the BJP. The BSP later sacked him.

“I withdrew because he (Surendran) asked me to…. He spoke to me over phone, but never met me,” Sundara told a news channel on Saturday.

“They gave me Rs 2.5 lakh, (of which) Rs 2 lakh was handed over to my mother and Rs 50,000 to me…. I had asked for Rs 15 lakh. They also gave me a mobile phone worth Rs 15,000,” Sundara told another television channel.

He said he had also demanded a wine shop. “I had asked them for a wine shop. But nothing happened after the election as no one called me,” Sundara said.

Surendran, who unsuccessfully contested from Manjeshwar and Konni (in Pathanamthitta district), is yet to respond to Sundara’s claims. The Kasaragod BJP leadership has vehemently denied Sundara’s allegations.

Ironically, many in the BJP believe that the similarity in the names of Surendran and Sundara that may have confounded voters cost the former the Manjeshwar seat in the end. Sundara’s claims have also offered a glimpse of the depth of the desperation to score electoral points, especially in a state that has always staved off the BJP, as efforts were purportedly made to ease out an adversary who had polled just 467 votes in the last election.

Earlier, a leaked audiotape had triggered accusations that Surendran had bribed a Left ally to join the NDA, and an April 3 car robbery has left the state BJP unit fending off allegations of using money power to influence the April 6 Assembly elections.

Praseetha Azhikode, treasurer of the Janadhipathya Rashtriya Party, had on Wednesday accused Surendran of agreeing to pay Rs 10 lakh to her now-suspended party leader C.K. Janu to get her to return to the NDA. Both Surendran and Janu have denied the allegation.

The funds from the alleged payoffs are being linked to the highway robbery on April 3.

Although the complainant named Shamjeer had claimed that Rs 25 lakh in cash had been robbed by a gang that carjacked the vehicle in which he and RSS worker Dharmarajan were carrying the money in Kodakara, Thrissur, police have so far unearthed more than Rs 1 crore of the suspected Rs 3.5 crore that was in the car. Dharmarajan had allegedly been entrusted with ferrying money for the BJP.

A special investigation team of the police on Saturday questioned Surendran’s driver Libeesh and secretary Dipin in connection with the heist.

Sources said Libeesh and Dipin were questioned over call records that suggested they had been in touch with Dharmarajan. According to the sources, the duo have claimed that they had called up Dharmarajan as he had been entrusted with ferrying posters and other printed materials for the elections.

Sundara, the politician who has made fresh allegations of bribery against Surendran, has been under the media spotlight ever since the 2016 Kerala Assembly elections in which he had polled just 467 votes as an Independent.

Many in the BJP had suspected that some voters had confused Surendran with Sundara when the state unit chief lost the Manjeshwar seat this time by a wafer-thin margin of 89 votes. In the largely Kannada and Tulu-speaking part of the northern Kerala district of Kasaragod, bordering Karnataka, Surendran is called “Surendra” by people in Manjeshwar.

Kasaragod BJP president K. Srikanth denied that any money had been paid to Sundara. “This is a baseless allegation. We did not give him any money to withdraw his nomination papers,” Srikanth said, accusing the CPM and the IUML of getting Sundara to spread lies.

“We suspect that Sundara is making these allegations at the behest of the CPM and the IUML. What is coming out is a conspiracy against the BJP,” Srikanth said.

BJP veteran and former Kerala unit president C.K. Padmanabhan said the guilty would be punished. “Those who have erred will pay for it. That is how the law of nature works.”

Padmanabhan was one of the party seniors who had come out against Surendran’s style of functioning and leasing a helicopter for his election campaign.

CPM politburo member Kodiyeri Balakrishnan termed the scams being linked to the BJP as “only the tip of the iceberg”.

“What has been disclosed is only the tip of the iceberg. A comprehensive investigation is needed,” he told reporters.

Congress leader and Lok Sabha member K. Muraleedharan also called for a detailed inquiry by a retired judge.

“A detailed investigation is needed to probe the use of hawala money, his (Surendran’s) travel by helicopter and payoffs to rope in new partners,” Muraleedharan said.