MALAPPURAM:The decision of the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) to campaign for the BJP candidate in Vengara Assembly byelection has brought cheers to the NDA camp. The BDJS has been staying away from the campaign citing differences of opinion and issues between its state leadership and the national leadership of the NDA. BDJS district president Dasan Kottakkal said the decision follows a direction from the state leadership.
Earlier, the leaders of the BDJS were conspicuous by their absence in the election campaign of the BJP candidate. The first election convention in the constituency was boycotted by BDJS. BJP state chief Kummanam Rajasekharan, who attended the convention had said efforts were on to sort out the issues between the two parties and ensure participation of the BDJS in electioneering.“There are no issues at the local or district level. The BDJS decided to abstain from the electioneering due to the issues between the state leaderships of the BJP and the BDJS,” said Dasan.
BJP Vengara constituency president A Subramanian said the decision of the BDJS to campaign for the NDA candidate will help to strengthen the local level campaigns and woo more voters.
“The activists of the BDJS were not against us. Some of them were cooperating with our activities also,” he said.
Dasan Kottakkal said the open support of the BDJS will help the NDA improve its performance in Vengara Assembly seat.“The vote share was around 3,000 in the Assembly election held in 2011. Our support helped the NDA garner 7,000 votes in 2016 election,” he said.