Kummanam Rajasekharan new Kerala BJP Chief

Thiruvananthapuram/New Delhi

In a top-level reshuffle in election-bound Kerala, BJP chief Amit Shah today appointed Kummanam Rajasekharan as party state president, replacing V Muraleedharan, who has been made the state election management committee’s convener.

A party statement announced the appointment of Rajasekharan, the soft-spoken hardcore Sanghparivar activist, who has played a key role in nurturing RSS in the southern state.

The saffron party had recently appointed new state chiefs in Assam and West Bengal, the two other states going to polls in the first half of the next year.

Rajasekharan, will take charge at the state BJP headquarters in Thiruvanathapuram tomorrow.

General Secretary of Hindu Aikeya Vedi, the 63-year-old leader will lead the party in Kerala which is trying hard to break the bi-polar politics pattern — in which so far the Congress-led UDF and the opposition CPI(M)-led LDF have been coming to power alternatively.

BJP, which had so far fought lonely battle, has found new friend in the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP), an organisation of the backward but numerically strong Ezhava community in the state and had fought the recently held civic polls with its cooperation and support.

Chairman of Malayalam daily ‘Janmabhumi’, the mouth piece of party organ in the state, Rajasekheran, a bachelor, is the head of various other organisations connected with temple matters in the state.

Rajasekharan, a degree holder in botany and post-graduate in journalism, became a full time RSS worker after quitting his government job in 1987 and is known to share good rapport with grassroots level workers of BJP and other Sangh Parivar outfits.

He also worked as a sub-editor in various Malayalam dailies in the state before he became an active RSS worker.

He was also at the forefront of several agitations connected with the rights of temples in the state and also played a very important role in the popular stir by a group of environmentalists against the proposed private venture Aranmula Airport in Pathanamthitta district.

Rajasekharan spearheaded the agitation against the airport holding that the project would not only affect the environment, on the banks of River Pampa, but also the heritage value of the Sree Parthasarathy Temple in Aranmula.

Party workers gave him a grand welcome when he arrived at Thiruvanathapuram this evening from New Delhi.

PTI