After a disastrous performance in the recently held Assembly election, the Kerala unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party is in a big trouble following the filing of a case by the police against its state president K Surendran.
According to reports the police lodged an FIR following a disclosure that the BJP state president had paid money to a rival candidate to withdraw his nomination from Manjeshwaram Assembly constituency. But he lost the election.
The Kasaragod Police on Monday (June 7) lodged a case under 171 (B) and 171 (E) of the Indian Penal Code, which deal with inducing a person to exercise any electoral right or rewarding any person from having exercised any such right and bribery, respectively.
The police action followed a direction from the judicial magistrate court in Kasaragod. It needs to be mentioned that a Left Democratic Front leader, V V Rameshan moved a petition seeking a direction to police to lodge a case.
Kerala politics once again heated up when on June 5 Bahujan Samaj Party leader, K Sundara alleged that the BJP had paid him Rs 2.5 lakh and had given him a smart phone to withdraw his nomination.
According to media reports quoting Sundara, he had demanded Rs 10 lakh to withdraw. He was offered a wine parlour and a new house in Karnataka. The police recorded his statement. He had alleged that the local BJP leaders had abducted him to withdraw his nomination papers.
Curiously, after withdrawing his candidature Sundara joined the saffron party.
The filing of the case has come as an embarrassment to the BJP which is still to come out of shock after the complete wipe out of the party. Unlike last time when it won one seat the party failed to open its account and its voting percentage fell from around 15 to 11. This was so notwithstanding the fact that the BJP went to poll with Metro Man E Sreedharan as the chief ministerial face.
