KOCHI: The Pala bypoll result has divided the NDA with allies alleging that the authoritarian attitude of BJP, the big brother has led to the poor performance of its candidate in Pala bypoll. The NDA, which secured 24,828 votes in the 2016 Assembly election and 26,533 votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha election managed to get only 18,044 votes in Pala this time, giving substance to the allegations of vote trading.
The BJP leaders alleged that the vote share of its candidate declined due to non-cooperation of the NDA allies. A state leader of the BJP said that the absence of BDJS was evident in the campaign. “They did not join us in the house-to-house campaign. The BDJS has around 800 votes in Ramapuram alone. All these votes have gone to the LDF. While SNDP Yogam general secretary Vellappally Natesan openly supported the LDF, the BDJS leaders took a neutral approach led to a drop in our vote share,” he said.
Though Hindus form the majority in Pala constituency, most of them have political affiliations. The efforts of the BJP to unite the Hindu voters has not proved successful.
Of the 1,79,107 voters in Pala, 60.9 per cent are Hindus, while Christians constitute 38.8 per cent. Ezhavas account for 27.6 per cent of the Hindu voters and Nairs are 25.9 per cent. The Ezhavas had traditionally been supporters of the CPM, but the BDJS has succeeded to attract a sizeable number of the community members to its fold. The ties between the state BJP leaders and the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) have been sore for a while now as the big brother failed to keep the promises given to its leaders. “Our president shifted from Thrissur Lok Sabha seat to Wayanad on request from BJP president Amit Shah during the recent Parliament election.
The BJP had promised to give us the chairman post in Spices Board, Coir Board and Coconut Board. Though our leader Subhash Vasu was made chairman of Spices Board, all the powers were shifted to the secretary. Even the daughter of a CPI leader was made a standing counsel but we didn’t get any post,” said a BDJS leader. The BDJS was of the opinion that NDA should field former Union minister P C Thomas in Pala. But the BJP leadership did not accept this.