NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Modi has asked the Kerala unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to reshuffle its core committee and induct new faces, the New Indian Express has learnt.
At a core committee meeting attended by him earlier this month in Kochi, the PM expressed dissatisfaction about the dismal electoral performance of the party in the state.
According to a senior leader who attended the meeting, Modi also asked state leaders to recruit prominent leaders from other parties into BJP, a tried and tested strategy of the BJP in states like Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Maharashtra, and Karnataka among others.
Last week, the BJP central leadership appointed former Union Minister Prakash Javadekar as the state in charge, as part of its organisational restructuring in the run-up to 2024 elections. Javadekar has replaced BJP national executive member C P Radhakrishnan who took charge in 2020.
According to sources, though the PM had raised the issue of organisational restructuring earlier too, this time, he wanted to implement the changes at the earliest.
“The PM said that the party had not seen any growth in the state despite having favourable conditions,” said the leader.
Modi reportedly said that he has been seeing the same faces in the core committee for the last many years and induction of new members is imperative to change the fortune of the party in the state.
The 10- member core committee consists of senior members such as O Rajagopal, Union Minister V Muraleedharan, state president K Surendran, Kummanam Rajashekhran, and P K Krishnadas among others.
However, some senior BJP leaders, who had attended the meeting with PM, told this newspaper that despite PM’s insistence on recruiting leaders from other parties, it’s easier said than done.
“No prominent leader from Congress or CPM will join BJP as they know that it will end his/her political future,” one leader said.
Speaking to the TNIE, BJP state president K Surendran said that the details of the meeting cannot be divulged. He, however, admitted that the PM discussed the expansion plan of the party. He maintained that there was no plan to reshuffle the core committee.
A core committee member M T Ramesh told TNIE that he didn’t attend the core committee meeting as he was indisposed with Covid.
The faction-ridden ties between the state BJP’ and its ideological mentor RSS is another factor which hurt the prospects of the party in the state.
“Now with Javadekar presiding over the affairs of the state, we expect to see some positive changes,” said an RSS leader.
‘Easier said than done’
Some senior BJP leaders, who had attended the meeting with PM, told this newspaper that despite PM’s insistence on recruiting leaders from other parties, it’s easier said than done.