KOCHI: In a surprise move, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded its state president K Surendran from Wayanad, who is pitted against Congress's Rahul Gandhi and CPI's Annie Raja.
The saffron party has also announced candidates in the remaining three constituencies in Kerala -- Dr K S Radhakrishnan in Ernakulam, Dr T N Sarasu in Alathur and actor G Krishnakumar in Kollam.
However, the big surprise came at Wayanad, a constituency that has attracted national interest after the war of words between the INDIA block alliance partners Congress and CPI over Rahul Gandhi's candidature.
Party insiders said the move to field Surendran in Wayanad is a strong message from BJP's national leadership that the party is ready for a big fight in the hill constituency.
Surendran, who has been serving as the BJP state president from February 2020, contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Pathanamthitta, where he finished third behind the Congress and the CPM candidates. In the 2021 Assembly elections, Surendran contested from two constituencies, viz., Konni and Manjeswaram, securing 32,811 and 67,000 votes respectively.
A native of Ulliyeri in Kozhikode, Surendran has been serving as the general secretary of the BJP for the last 10 years.
The NDA candidate in Wayanad during the 2019 polls was Thushar Vellapally of BDJS. In the election, Rahul Gandhi beat the nearest CPI candidate PP Suneer by a margin of over 4.31 lakh votes. The NDA candidate Thushar came a poor third, polling about 78,000 votes.
Dr Radhakrishnan and Krishnakumar will also be attempting to register their first win after failing in their previous attempts. Dr Radhakrishnan finished at a distant third in Alappuzha in 2019 LS polls while Krishnakumar lost from the Thiruvananthapuram assembly seat in 2021, ending behind Antony Raju of the LDF and V S Sivakumar of the Congress.
Meanwhile, it will be a debut election for Dr Sarasu, the former principal of Govt Victoria College, Palakkad. She was in the news in 2016 when a section of her students greeted her with a 'ceremonial wreath' during her retirement day.