JP Nadda on 2-day Kerala visit to ramp up state BJP unit

Thiruvananthapuram: BJP National President J.P.Nadda will be on a two-day Kerala visit from Sunday during which he is expected to ramp up the state party unit.

His visit comes amid complaints of lacklustre functioning of Kerala unit of BJP is going forward.

The complaints have come from none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, while engaging in talks with the state party leadership, during their recent visit to the state.

Incidentally, the state leadership has been assuring the national leadership that things will change and both Modi and Shah are understood to have reprimanded the top leadership here that nothing has changed and the state BJP unit is unable to make any headway.

One reason that is known to all in the BJP at the national level, the bane of the state unit is the deep rooted factionalism prevailing.

The BJP in Kerala was unable to retain its only seat which they won for the first time in the history of the party in the 2016 Assembly polls.

When the votes were counted at the 2021 Assembly polls, the BJP vote share went down by 2.60 per cent to reach 12.36 percent compared to the 2016 elections.

The first step that the national leadership decided to act was when former Union Minister Prakash Javedkhar was recently brought in as the in-charge for Kerala and now comes the visit of Nadda.

In the two days that Nadda is going to be with the state leaders, he will be urging them to put their acts together as time is running out.

The present state president is 52 year old K.Surendran and despite his youthfulness as compared to his predecessors, who were aged and seasoned veterans, this change also did not appear to have brought good luck to the party , here and hence the national leadership is seriously looking to ramp up the party and Nadda appears to have a tough ask.