Even as the Vengara assembly by-poll in Kerala is set for October 11, the BJP-led NDA (National Democratic Alliance) is facing tough times, as its second-biggest constituent, the BDJS, stayed away from the alliance’s first election meeting near here yesterday.
The state leadership of the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) had directed its Malappuram district unit to keep away from the election convention.
State Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Kummanam Rajasekharan told the media here that they had expected the BDJS to be present during the poll campaign.
“We have briefed our national leadership about the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena demands and are hopeful that all issues will be sorted out,” said Rajasekharan.
Popular political analyst A Jayasankar said that as far as the Vengara by-poll was concerned, the presence or absence of the BDJS is not likely to have any impact since this particular constituency and the Malappuram district have been the citadel of the United Democratic Front (UDF) ally, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), and the outcome of the poll was a foregone conclusion.
Former legislator K N A Khader of the IUML is taking on CPI-M leader P P Basheer at Vengara, while the BJP has fielded the party’s national executive member K Janachandran.
The by-election became necessary after sitting legislator and top IUML leader P K Kunhalikutty vacated the seat after he got elected from the Malappuram Lok Sabha constituency in April this year.
Kunhalikutty won the 2016 assembly poll by a margin of over 38,000 votes and, in the Lok Sabha poll, the margin went up to over 40,000 votes.
It was in December 2015 that the powerful Hindu Ezhava leader Vellapally Natesan launched the BDJS and soon joined hands with the BJP and its National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and his son Tushar was made the supreme leader of the party.
In the 2016 assembly poll, the BDJS secured 3.9% votes, which by Kerala election standards was a good beginning.
The BDJS leadership, especially Natesan, is unhappy with the BJP national leadership as his repeated requests for positions in corporations and in other posts have not been addressed and, of late, he has taken to publicly criticising the party’s state leadership.
Natesan’s sudden visit to the residence of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in the state capital early this week had set tongues wagging, as he himself had time and again openly stated that the BDJS would snap ties with the BJP and move to the Left camp.
Even though Natesan does not hold any post in the BDJS, he is the general secretary of the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) – the social movement of the Ezhavas that propagates the values of social reformer Sree Narayana Guru.
While Natesan is keen that the BDJS should join the Left Democratic Front, his son Tushar feels it would be best to stay in the company of the Congress-led UDF.

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