Allegations of secret pacts surface in Kerala

There are rumours of a secret understanding between parties in Kerala after the rejection of nomination papers filed by Bharathiya Janata Party candidates at Thalassery, Guruvayoor, and Devikulam constituencies.

Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala): With just a few days left for the Assembly elections in the State, the candidates are busy campaigning after filing their nomination papers.

The latest discussion in Kerala’s political sphere is the rejection of nomination papers filed by Bharathiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates at Thalassery, Guruvayoor, and Devikulam constituencies. It is also to be noted that all three constituencies are sitting Communist Party Marxist (CPM) seats.

As the nominations filed by the three National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidates have been rejected, the BJP state leadership is facing a huge setback. But, the nomination rejection of the candidates and even the dummy candidates of the BJP, has paved the way for allegations and counter-allegations of tacit deals for the Left Democratic Front (LDF) led by the CPM and the United Democratic Front (UDF) led by the Congress.

In Thalassary and Guruvayur constituencies where the BJP has influence, each vote would be crucial for victory. The BJP had aggregated more than twenty thousand votes from Thalassery, the highest number of votes the party has got from a constituency in Kerala in the last elections.

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The CPM has alleged that the BJP candidates’ nominations were rejected to support the UDF in these two seats. Congress says the nomination rejection is due to a discreet deal between the CPM and the BJP.

In the past few days, RSS ideologue and former editor of Organiser (RSS Newspaper) Balashankar, and Nemom incumbent MLA and BJP senior leader O Rajagopal had made revelations on the previous and current ‘secret pacts between the parties on vote sharing’.

Amidst all these, former Chief Minister and UDF’s Puthupally seat candidate Oommen Chandy’s son in law Varghese George joined the Twenty 20, a corporate-backed party, which is making its debut in the Kerala Assembly elections this time. Varghese George said, he had to be part of the Twenty 20 as the politicians have not been working in an ideal manner. George would work as the general secretary of the Twenty 20.

Actor and filmmaker Lal has also taken a membership in the Twenty 20 organisation controlled by the Anna Kitex group in Kizhakkambalam, Ernakulam. Lal would work as part of the advisory committee, the office bearers informed.

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Sabu Jacob, the Chief Coordinator of the Twenty 20, said that many more prominent personalities are to join the organisation before the Assembly polls. After the elections, if any of the major alliances lack an absolute majority, offering support to the alliance would be considered then.

Twenty 20 would offer conditional support to an alliance that does good to the people. But, we will never be a part of the Government, Jacob said.

Twenty 20 has fielded candidates in 8 seats in Ernakulam district. Dr Jo Jospeh, Kerala Congress leader P J Joseph’s son in law had also joined Twenty 20 earlier. Jo Joseph is on the poll battlefield as the candidate from the Kothamangalam seat.

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Even after the nominations have been accepted and the candidates declared, Congress still struggles to settle the internal tiffs on the candidate choice at Elathur in the Kozhikode district.

The Congress workers have been demanding that a Congress candidate must be fielded in the seat which was allotted to Mani C Kappan’s new party Nationalist Congress Kerala (NCK). Despite talks, led by senior leaders like K V Thomas, to arrive at a consensus, the issue remains unsolved. Finally, the matter has been left to the KPCC. It is being hinted that the KPCC would intervene and arrive at a conclusion after talking to Mani C Kappan.