KOCHI: A day after an underwhelming performance in the local body election, the BJP has gone into serious soul-searching to chart a new course of action before the assembly polls.Though the saffron party improved its winning tally from 1,205 seats in 2015 to 1,596 seats this time, BJP is miffed at the poor show put up by NDA allies in the state. In fact, not a single ally could win more than a seat in the state. Both Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), one of the main allies, and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) managed to win only a seat each.
It was with much expectation that the BJP roped in BDJS as an ally in 2016 assembly polls, but the political calculations have failed to yield any desired result so far. Leaders now admit that the absence of a formidable ally is hurting the BJP’s prospects in the state. The only hope of having a seasoned state politician as an ally also crashed after Kerala Congress-P C Thomas faction decided to pull out of the NDA.
Though a section of BJP leaders is not happy with BDJS, a few feel Thushar Vellapally-led party did help BJP win more seats.BJP state vice-president A N Radhakrishnan said the party would analyse the reason for the poor performance of the allies. “We will evaluate the performance of the party and the allies in the poll.
We will take necessary measures to identify the shortfalls,” he said. Some of the party members have urged the state leadership to take stock of the ground realities and evaluate the purpose of having allies like BDJS, KKC and LJP in the NDA.
The Vishnupuram Chandrasekharan-led KKC contested in 16 seats but could not win a single seat. Political commentator P Sujathan said the BJP failed to read the social and political dynamics in the state and its tie-up with BDJS has not done any good for the party. “BDJS is never a representative of Ezhava community and the BJP should know the fact that no Ezhava community member will vote as per the call made by BDJS leaders,” he said.
NDA allies in Kerala
Bharat Dharma
Jana Sena (BDJS)
Lok Janshakti Party (LJP)
Kerala Kamaraj Congress (KKC)