Thrissur: Nattika MLA C C Mukundan, who recently quit the CPI, joined the BJP on Monday. Mukundan reached the BJP district committee office and took party membership. He is likely to be fielded as the BJP candidate from Nattika.

Mukundan had earlier been expelled from the CPI after he announced that he would contest the election as an independent candidate.

The CPI state leadership had decided to field Geetha Gopi as its candidate in Nattika. After the party officially announced her candidature, Mukundan levelled a serious allegation that the CPI had turned the seat into a “payment seat”.

There had also been opposition to Mukundan at the local level. The Nattika and Cherpu party committees had raised objections to considering the sitting MLA again, and the Thrissur district leadership supported this stand. Some leaders argued that Mukundan had already been given an opportunity once.

Subsequently, members of the CPI state executive committee from Thrissur held a separate meeting and finalised Geetha Gopi as the candidate, dropping Mukundan.

Complaints had also emerged from the grassroots that Mukundan had distanced himself from the local leadership and was not attending party committee meetings.

Mukundan decided to join the BJP after his attempts to enter the Congress failed. With the mediation of Congress leader Jose Valloor, he travelled to Delhi and met senior Congress leaders, but the discussions did not yield any result.

In the previous election, Mukundan had defeated Congress candidate Sunil Laloor by a margin of 28,431 votes. The BJP had secured 33,716 votes in the constituency in that election. The BJP hopes that if it can consolidate the CPI votes as well, it could emerge victorious in the constituency.