‘Centre turned Kerala into testing ground, generously allotted seats to alliance partners’, criticize local leaders 

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Local BJP leaders voiced strong criticism against both the national and state leadership during meetings reviewing the assembly elections. They expressed serious disagreement for generously allotting seats to alliance partners and the practice of selecting candidates based on surveys.

State leaders explained that the decision to allot seats to allies like BDJS and Twenty20 was taken by the Centre, based on survey findings. However, local leaders argued that such a method of selecting candidates is not suitable for Kerala and accused the Centre of treating the state as an experimental ground in every election. They also pointed out that the Christian outreach efforts yielded no results in the election.

Local leaders blamed the state leadership for giving 19 seats to Twenty20. They criticized the move of allocating even strongholds of the Sangh Parivar to such a party. In many constituencies, Twenty20 leaders were reportedly searching for candidates at the last minute. Even leaders who had previously been sidelined by the BJP ended up contesting as Twenty20 candidates. It was also alleged that many candidates lacked basic political or electoral experience.

Local leaders said that even basic checks--such as verifying whether candidates’ names were on the voter list were not conducted. They added that some alliance candidates arrived at election committee offices apologizing for their lack of knowledge about the process.