BDJS should consider fighting Chengannur bypoll: Vellapally

Openly declaring his displeasure against the BJP, SNDP strongman and its political arm's founder Vellapally Natesan on Saturday said that relations have reached such a low that his BDJS should consider fielding their own candidate for the May 28 Chengannur by-election.

"At the 2016 Chengannur assembly polls, the BJP candidate got more than 42,000 votes and now the BDJS can show its strength... if the BJP continues to be haughty and are proud that all those votes are theirs, then the BDJS should certainly field its own candidate. It's a way to teach the BJP a lesson," Natesan told a TV channel here.

He went on to add that the situation today in the BDJS is that 99 per cent of them have a feeling that even if there is going to be a coming together, it might not get the desired results.

The Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), the political arm of the SNDP, a platform for the backward Ezhavas, is the second-biggest constituent of the NDA in the state but is unhappy at not getting the posts "promised" to it when it decided to join the grouping in 2015, soon after being formed.

The BDJS went public with its unhappiness when Natesan's son and BDJS President Tushar Velapally said their non-cooperation with the BJP continues.

The by-election was necessitated by the death of Communist Party of India (CPI-M) legislator K.K. Ramachandran Nair in January.

In the 2016 assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) former state chief P.S. Sreedharan Pillai came a very close third to the sitting Congress legislator P.C. Vishnunath.

This time too he has been fielded, while the Congress has put up local leader D.Vijayakumar and the CPI-M, its Alappuzha district secretary Saji Cheriyan.

In the 2016 polls, Nair secured 52,880 votes, Vishnunath 44,987 votes and Pillai 42,682 votes.

Putting up a brave face, State BJP president Kummanam Rajasekheran said that the candidature of Pillai was announced by the NDA when Tushar Vellapally was also present.

Ruling out any crisis in the NDA, he said that Tushar and BJP President Amit Shah have the best of relations.

--IANS

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