Amit Shah to visit Thiruvananthapuram on June 23

Thiruvananthapuram: BJP national president Amit Shah will arrive here on June 23 to take stock of the party’s performance in the Assembly elections. Though the meeting was earlier scheduled to take place in  Palakkad, it was shifted due to the factional feud in the local unit  which  resulted in the defeat of party general secretary Sobha Surendran in  the elections.

Ms Surendran was fielded from Palakkad against the wishes of  Mr C. Krishnakumar,  former district president and current state secretary, who wanted to contest from there. She put up an impressive performance by coming second. Prior to Mr Amit Shah’s visit, the state committee will be reshuffled.  

But the district presidents and secretaries, who had recently been appointed,  would not be changed. At the recent BJP national executive meeting in Allahabad, the state leadership was lauded for its work in the Assembly elections. But a section of senior level BJP leaders is  unhappy with the way former leaders have been sidelined in the party.

Meanwhile, the central BJP leadership has asked the four state general secretaries, M. T. Ramesh, K. Surendran, Sobha Surendran and A. N. Radhakrishnan to have a sitting once in three weeks to strengthen the party cadre set-up. Mr. Ramesh will be based in Thiruvananthapuram as a full-time general secretary in charge of BJP state headquarters, Mararji Bhavan.