Months ahead of crucial local body elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)‘s Kerala unit has gone in for a revamp infusing fresh faces as well as experienced leaders as its office-bearers.
Senior leaders M.T. Ramesh and Sobha Surendran were appointed general secretaries along with younger leaders S. Suresh and Anoop Antony Joseph, according to a press release from State president Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s office.
In the first major revamp in the party after Mr. Chandrasekhar took charge in March, leaders seen as close to former State president K. Surendran and former Union Minister V. Muraleedharan appeared to have been sidelined.
C. Krishnakumar and P. Sudheer, who were holding the general secretary post, found themselves a notch below with vice-president posts after the reorganisation. Former media cell convener P.R. Sivasankaran is also learnt to be unhappy with the new arrangement.
However, senior leaders whom The Hindu spoke to maintained that there were no differences within the party over the revamp.
The new office-bearers
The BJP appointed a total of 10 vice-presidents, including former IPS officer R. Sreelekha, K.S. Radhakrishnan, Shaun George, B. Gopalakrishnan, M. Abdul Salam, K. Soman and K.K. Aneesh Kumar.
Ms. Sreelekha, the first woman IPS officer of DGP rank in Kerala, finds herself elevated to the post less than a year after she joined the saffron party. Mr. Salam, former Vice-Chancellor of Calicut University, was in the past fielded by the party in the Malappuram Lok Sabha constituency in the last general elections.
The elevation of Shaun George, son of P.C. George, and Anoop Antony Joseph are seen as part of the BJP’s ongoing push to appeal to the Christian voters and to shed its anti-minority image.
The newly appointed secretaries are Ashokan Kulanada, K. Renjith, Renu Suresh, V.V. Rajesh, Panthalam Prathapan, Jiji Joseph, M.V. Gopakumar, Poonthura Sreekumar, P. Shyamraj and M.P. Anjana Renjith.
The BJP has also appointed five regional presidents. K. Sreekanth has been appointed as the head of the Kozhikode region, V. Unnikrishnan Master in Palakkad region, A. Nagesh in Ernakulam region, N. Hari in Alappuzha region and B.B. Gopakumar in Thiruvananthapuram region.
E. Krishnadas has been appointed as the treasurer, Jayaraj Kaimal as the office secretary, Abhijith R. Nair as the social media convener, Sandeep Somanath as the media convener, T.P. Jayachandran Master as the chief spokesperson and V.K. Sajeevan as the State cell coordinator.
