Sreedharan Pillai may be considered in Wayanad

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Though BJP state president P.S. Sreedharan Pillai has lost out in the tug of war with general secretary K. Surendran over the Pathanamthitta seat,  Pillai has a chance of contesting from Wayanad if Congress president Rahul Gandhi decides to seek the  mandate from there, it is said.  

Mr Pillai was denied Pathanamthitta  by the national leadership thr-ough the machinations of  organising national joint secretary B. L. Santosh, V. Muraleed-haran, MP  and the RSS.

National president Amit Shah has insisted that Thiruvananthapur-am and Pathanamthitta should be won at any cost, as they fall in the A-category along with  Palakkad, Thrissur and Kasaragod constituencies.  Funds will pour in for the above seats.  Sreedharan Pillai was counting on the goodwill he had earned from the NSS and Christian communities to capture Pathanamthitta, but Surendran was backed by the  state RSS after he waged a battle on the Sabarimala issue by even going to  jail.

A  BJP office-bearer told DC that Santhosh and former BJP state president Muraleedh-aran had clinched the Pathanamthitta seat for  Surendran. “Surendran,  who was previously bas-ed in Kasaragod, Kozhi-kode and  Thrissur,  shif-ted to Pathanamthitta when Sabarimala occupied centre stage, and the RSS sided with him,”   he  said.

Veteran BJP leader and former South India organising general secretary P. P. Mukundan told DC that Sreeedh-aran Pillai and his team had  forgotten the  ordinary party workers and accommodated  Tom Va-dakkan, K. S. Radhak-rishnan, G. Raman Nair and  Alphons Kannant-hanam overnight in  key posts.

“How can Sreedharan Pillai  ignore those who have worked for the  party right from the freedom movement?  Raman Nair had even sent  scores of BJP workers to jail during the Emergency period,”  said Mukundan.

But a  BJP leader told DC that  Sreedharan Pillai will be able to lead the campaign more effectively now .