'Candidate selection on religious basis'; BJP issues circular ahead of local body elections

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala wing of BJP issued a circular to determine candidates on the basis of religion in the local body elections in the state. The BJP decided to provide reservations based on religion in the candidate list. The circular also suggests that members of the Christian community should be made candidates. According to reports, the Kannur district president has issued a circular to the subordinate units stating that a survey has been conducted to determine the candidates in this way.

For a long, the BJP state leadership has been working on ways to woo Christian sections in Kerala. The survey was conducted under the leadership of BJP state vice-president Shaun George. The state leadership directed the district leadership to select candidates from the Christian community in the gram panchayats in the right proportion.

Meanwhile, the BJP state unit is also making moves to reach out to the Muslim community. As part of this, the party is planning to visit all Muslim homes in the state. The decision has been made to visit homes ahead of the local body elections. BJP state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that a Muslim outreach will be started under the leadership of the party's state vice president, Dr Abdul Salam.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that the aim is to unite all sections and bring them into the fold of BJP rather than winning votes. The state chief also made a premonition that the UDF and LDF would try to douse BJP’s outreach by injecting ‘religious poison’ in the coming days.

Political observers opine BJP’s moves are solely aimed at winning votes. The party centres themselves admit that Christian ties have helped the BJP to increase the vote share in many constituencies in the state in the Lok Sabha elections. Christian votes also played a significant role in Suresh Gopi's victory in Thrissur. Thus, BJP is now actively on a mission to apply the same formula to the Muslim sections in Kerala, with hopes of seeing the results.

The BJP began reaching out to the community by visiting Christian homes ahead of Easter in the name of a love march. Leaders down to the booth level visited Christian homes and handed over greeting cards with pictures of Jesus Christ and Prime Minister Modi.