BJP Poised To Appoint First Christian State President In Kerala

Thiruvananthapuram: For the first time, the BJP is likely to have a Christian as the party president of Kerala’s state unit. The BJP central leadership has started the process of electing a new state president for its Kerala unit and central election officer Pralhad Joshi will receive the nomination for the post on Sunday.

About The Decision

Though the state leaders are clueless about who will be their next president, the top name doing the rounds is former police chief Jacob Thomas. This is with the aim to woo the sizable Christian community in the state and, at the same time, have a new face to head the party. The BJP leadership had earlier handed over the presidency of its Tamil Nadu unit to Annamalai Kuppuswamy, an IPS officer and an IIM Lucknow product.

“If the national leadership goes by its earlier decision, the party will have its first-ever Christian president. He has a 60:40 chance. But this is BJP. No one knows what will happen next. There are also chances that the national leadership will go for a more experienced leader,” a senior BJP leader was quoted in the media.

As per the BJP’s election process, the national leadership would ask the leader whom it finds suitable to be the next president to file the nomination. The new president will be announced Monday at a meeting of around 2,000 leaders including district presidents, secretaries, state council and state committee members, state office- bearers and mandalam presidents.

If the party decides to hand over the reins of the party to a woman, it is likely to go to firebrand leader Shobha Surendran, though she does not enjoy the confidence of other top leaders. At one point, the BJP asked former president V Muralidharan and former Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar to head the party unit. However, both the leaders declined the offer.

This leaves incumbent president K Surendran, and senior leader M T Ramesh as the other frontrunners. Surendran has been holding the top post for the last five years. Though he has a chance to hold the post again, the national leadership had changed all state presidents who had completed five years. It was under Surendran’s leadership that BJP won the first parliament seat in the state and increased its vote share by over 19%.