KOCHI: Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas and Tourism Suresh Gopi said he foresees major gains for the BJP in the 2026 assembly election, declaring that the party is poised to win four seats in Thiruvananthapuram district, including recapturing Nemom.
Addressing the BJP’s local-body election campaign in Tripunithura on Thursday, he said other political parties would no longer be able to claim that the BJP’s “account remains closed” in Kerala.
Reiterating a key infrastructure demand, the Thrissur MP called for extending Kochi metro to Coimbatore, arguing that only a long commercial corridor would make the system fully effective.
“Will someone driving from Palakkad park in Aluva and take the metro to Kochi city? No. If we are thinking of a commercial corridor, the metro must reach Coimbatore,” he said. Pointing to the Delhi Metro, which spans Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, he insisted that multi-state metro networks are both feasible and necessary.
Suresh Gopi also slammed those who mocked his earlier remarks on the metro rail’s limited reach. “They say the metro is only for Kochi. I cannot but call them fools,” he said, adding that he has no “special dictionary” to put it mildly.
Hosting the Olympics in 2036 or 2040 would help accelerate infrastructure growth across the country, he said, urging Keralites to study the dramatic improvements in states like Uttar Pradesh.
He also referenced an English article written by Shashi Tharoor, saying the Congress MP had expressed opinions “as a voter, not as a Congressman”, and asked BJP workers to circulate its Malayalam version in Tripunithura.