THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A meeting of the BJP core committee held ahead of the state leadership meet was noted for the absence of a few senior leaders. This, despite national general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh closely overseeing the proceedings of the meeting.
State general secretary MT Ramesh and state vice-president A N Radhakrishnan - known to be close to the P K Krishnadas faction - were conspicuous by their absence in the core committee meeting. Radhakrishnan, though a vice-president, is a special invitee to the core group as part of a factional arrangement.
Senior leader Sobha Surendran, who has been re-appointed as vice-president in the recent reorganisation of the party, as well as her loyalists also stayed away from the state leadership meet as a mark of protest. According to sources, Krishnadas attended the core committee meeting to convey to the national general secretary (organisation) his faction’s grievances over being sidelined in the party reorganisation.
His loyalists Ramesh and Radhakrishnan staying away from the meeting was seen as an expression of the faction’s seething resentment. “Though Ramesh and Radhakrishnan were among the senior leaders who were sent on a fact-finding mission to interact with grassroots-level workers following the election debacle, their feedback was not taken into account. They were also not called for any serious discussion by the state leadership,” said a senior leader.
SilverLine: BJP to step up opposition
T’Puram: BJP has decided to step up its opposition to LDF government’s ambitious SilverLine semi high-speed rail project, with the state leadership meeting of the party held here on Tuesday resolving to give full support to protests against the D63,941-crore project. The state government is already in a tight spot as the BJP-led Union government recently expressed its inability to bear the liability of the foreign loans to be availed for the project. “It is not people’s interests but corruption that prompts the LDF to back the project. The government should withdraw from the SilverLine project that is impractical and not suited for the state,” BJP state president K Surendan told the state leadership meet. He also called for implementation of the Gadgil committee report on conservation of Western Ghats.