BJP su ers collateral damage over Sobha’s ‘disclosure’ on Jayarajan

The BJP appears to have absorbed some collateral damage in the aftermath of Sobha Surendran’s “give the game away disclosure“about her party’s “entrenched e¤orts to woo“Left Democratic Front convener E. P. Jayarajan to the National Democratic Alliance fold.

A section of the BJP’s State leadership appears mi¤ed that Ms. Surendran had cast the party’s attempt to enhance its bipartisan appeal, bolster its top ranks and erase the “Hindutva slur” in a poor light by accentuating the outsize role of an alleged political ’xer.

Ms. Surendran stirred the pot at a post-poll press conference in Alappuzha last week by following up on Congress State president K. Sudhakaran’s politically tempestuous election-day claim that BJP’s Kerala in-charge Prakash Javadekar had met Mr. Jaryarajan through the good o¢ces of a political ’xer. Ms. Surendran claimed she was also part of the BJP’s covert negotiations to win over Mr. Jayarajan.

Mr. Javadekar, under whose watch the BJP claimed Congress’ scalp by reeling in Anil K. Antony and Padmaja Venugopal, both scions of two powerful Congress families in Kerala, has not, somewhat ominously, responded to Ms. Surendran’s “let the cat out of the bag” statement.

The “discontent” with Ms. Surendran’s ‘‘ill-considered expose’’seemed manifest in a scathing Facebook post by BIP State vice-president P. Raghunath.

He said the BJP did not need the favour of any dubious middleman to attract the public to the party. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s good governance was a magnet enough.

Power brokers

Mr. Reghunath cautioned that hobnobbing with powerbrokers would not bode well for public ’gures.

The BJP had an organisational ethos and an unwavering, time-tested methodology for enlisting supporters.

Mr. Reghunath asked whether the controversy was a made-for-media narrative to eclipse the “Modi wave” sweeping Kerala by endorsing Congress’ line.

BJP’s national executive member P. K. Krishnadas fended o¤ the question of whether Ms. Surendran was in the wrong.

He said Ms. Surendran had made a public statement and no BJP worker could be faulted for working to increase the party’s public in©uence.

Ms. Surendran, BJP’s political ’rebrand known for her crowd-stirring demagoguery, has a history of running afoul of the BJP’s State leadership.

In 2021, the party yellow-carded her for suggesting that the Indian Union Muslim League was not anathema to the BJP if the former put the nation above all else.

She had also claimed that she felt sidelined in the BJP.