Former lawmaker from Kerala’s Kannur AP Abdullakutty, who was expelled from the Congress for praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his party’s massive victory in the Lok Sabha election, has said he will formally join the BJP in a couple of days.
Abdullakutty met the Prime Minister and Union home minister Amit Shah in New Delhi on Monday.
Political observers said Abdullakutty’s entry will be an advantage to the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is desperate to break the minority wall for poll dividends. Despite his “aya ram, gaya Ram” or turncoat image the “plain-speaking minority leader” will be an asset to the party, they added.
The Congress threw him out earlier in June after he said in a Facebook post that Prime Minister Modi won the Lok Sabha polls handsomely for the second time because he inculcated “enough Gandhian values in governance”. He had been sulking after he was denied a seat in the April-May Lok Sabha elections.
After his expulsion from the Congress, the BJP’s leaders in Kerala had welcomed him to their party.
Kutty began his political career with the Students Federation of India, the student wing of the CPI(M), at a young age.
The party fielded him from Kannur Lok Sabha constituency in 1999 and he
defeated Congress strongman Mullapally Ramachandran, the present Congress chief. He was called the “albutha kutty” or wonder kid for his giant killer status. In the 2004 election, he again emerged victorious from Kannur.
As he started airing his opinions publicly, the left party had to censure him on many occasions and the last nail came after he lauded the development model of Modi when he was Gujarat chief minister after visiting the western state.
He was soon expelled and the Congress admitted him readily. He became a legislator twice in the 2009 by-election and the 2011 assembly elections. In 2016, he lost the poll from the Thalassery assembly constituency.
Speculation is rife that he will be made a candidate from the Mancheswaram assembly constituency in north Kerala where a by-poll is due in six months.
