Flip-flop shows BJP’s unease with Sreedharan as CM pick

New Delhi: With the BJP backtracking from announcing “Metro Man” E. Sreedharan as the chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming elections, political analysts have said that announcing Sreedharan as the CM candidate would not have helped the BJP garner votes. “Kerala BJP will fight Kerala polls with E. Sreedharanji as its chief ministerial candidate. We will defeat both CPM and Congress to provide corruption-free, development-oriented governance for the people of Kerala,” Minister of State for External Affairs V. Muraleedharan had tweeted. However, the minister later issued a clarification and told ANI: “What I wanted to tell was that through media reports, I learnt that the party has made this announcement. Later, I cross-checked with the party chief who said that he has not made any such announcement.”

Last week, two Kerala High Court judges P.N. Ravindran and V. Chitambaresh had joined the BJP. On this, N.M. Pearson, a political analyst, told The Sunday Guardian, “All influential people do join political parties ahead of elections.” On Sreedharan, Pearson said, “Sreedharan may be a good person and he desires to do a lot. But for the BJP, it won’t be beneficial.”

Prabhash J, a political commentator, said, “By inducting Sreedharan into BJP, the party may have scored some brownie points in his area. But I doubt, this would translate and convert into a huge number of voters in the elections. Bureaucrats and technocrats joining a political party after their retirement is normal. Nothing new in this.” During the induction of Ravindran into the BJP, the former judge had said that he is joining the party because he is impressed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s work. On this, Pearson said, “This statement proves that Ravindran joined the BJP not because of the party ideology or its work in Kerala. So, we may expect some kind of position being given to these influential people in the Central government.”

Talking about the recent ‘love jihad’ comment by BJP Kerala chief K. Surendran, Pearson said, “In the debates in the media and in the speeches of politicians, they are not focusing on the Left’s deviation from its policies. If the Opposition parties question the LDF government on policy matters, it will be big trouble. The Opposition parties are not discussing because their policies are also the same.” Prabhash said, “This Left government is the most ‘Un-Left’ government in the history of Indian politics. They have hired a consultancy firm to propagate their schemes, which is unheard of. So, they have taken a leaf out of the BJP government’s propaganda method.”