New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has blanked out Pathanamthitta seat in its second list of Lok Sabha candidates too, sparking speculation that it has zoomed in on a Congress heavyweight. Senior Congress leader P J Kurien, whose name did the rounds, slammed the 'switch over' reports as baseless and fabricated.
The BJP had Thursday night announced its first list of 184 candidates, including 13 from Kerala, leaving out only the Pathanamthitta constituency. As the state party leadership kept mum on the omission of Pathanamthitta from the BJP's second list too, there were unconfirmed reports that two senior Congress leaders were being considered for the post.
Reports said both these Congressmen were being considered at the behest of the Nair Service Society (NSS).
Kurien, who is in Thiruvalla, refuted reports that he had been offered a seat by the BJP. He reprimanded the media for 'circulating' fake news about his proposed switch over to the BJP camp.
The BJP, which is seeking to open its account in Lok Sabha from Kerala in the April 23 polls, is contesting 14 of the 20 seats in the state, leaving five to its allies - BDJS (Bharat Dharma Jana Sena) and one to Kerala Congress led by P C Thomas.
The party had spearheaded the agitation over the CPM-led LDF government's decision to implement the Supreme Court's verdict allowing women of all age groups to offer prayers at the hill shrine of Lord Ayyappa late last year and is pinning hopes on the Pathanamthitta constituency.
BJP state president P S Sreedharan Pillai, state general secretaries K Surendran and M T Ramesh and Union minister Alphons Kannanthanam were all keen on the Pathanamthitta seat. However, Kannanthanam was fielded in Ernakulam, while Sreedharan Pillai and Ramesh opted out of the race.
The dice seemed to be loaded in favour of Surendran, who was in the forefront of the recent Sabarimala agitation. BJP workers had been mounting pressure on the state and the national leadership for the candidature of Surendran.
Former Mizoram governor and senior BJP leader Kummanam Rajasekharan, who is contesting from Thiruvananthapuram, had said Thursday there was no confusion in the party over Pathanamthitta seat.
The list announced late on Friday night contains 36 names, including 23 nominees for Andhra Pradesh, where polling will be held in the first phase on April 11. The list also contained names of six candidates for Maharashtra and five for Odisha. Also, one candidate each for Assam and Meghalaya has been announced in the list. BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra will contest the general election from Puri parliamentary constituency in Odisha.
BJP's vote share in Pathanamthitta
When all other major parties lost votes between 2009 and 2014 general elections in the all-important Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha constituency, BJP’s vote share soared from 7.06 to 16.29 per cent. Congress vote share came down from 51.21 to 42.07 per cent, a 9.14 per cent decline. CPM’s share came down from 37.26 per cent to 35.4 per cent in the same period.
Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha constituency consists of Kanjirappally and Poonjar constituencies in Kottayam district and Thiruvalla, Ranni, Aranmula, Konni and Adoor Assembly constituencies in Pathanamthitta district.
Number of voters in the constituency has risen from 13,17,851 in the last election to 13,40,193 as of January 30, 2019. Of these, 6,41,473 are men, 6,98,718 women and 2 transgenders.
The BJP eyes to win this seat especially in the aftermath of the Sabarimala agitation. Its Lok Sabha candidate in 2009 – Radhakrishna Menon – secured 56,294 votes, while its M T Ramesh got 1,38,954 in 2014.
Ramesh, who finished third, was 2,19,888 votes short of winner Congress’s Anto Antony. The number of votes in his favour in the assembly divisions were: Kanjirappally 20,840, Poonjar 15,099, Thiruvalla 19,536, Ranni 18,531, Aranmula 23,771, Konni 18,222, Adoor 22,796 and postal 169.
In 2016 assembly election, BJP’s vote share in these places rose again. Its candidate V N Manoj got 31,411 votes in Kanjirappalli, D Ashok Kumar 16, 713 in Konni, Akkeeraman Kalidasan Bhattathiripad 31,439 in Thiruvalla, M T Ramesh 37,906 in Aranmula and P Sudheer 25,940 in Adoor. The candidates of BDJS, a BJP ally, contested in two seats - K Padmakumar fetched 28,201 votes in Ranni and P Ullas secured 19,966 votes in Poonjar.
In all, the NDA's assembly candidates obtained 1,91,576 votes in the region falling within Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha constituency. The figure was 1,38,954 in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
(With inputs from PTI)
