M L Ashwini — BJP's secret trump card in Kasaragod

KASARAGOD: With the exclusion of BJP national office bearer P K Krishnadas from the Kasaragod Lok Sabha seat, the BJP central and state leadership departed from their usual standard of selecting party veterans to contest from conducive seats. P K Krishnadas’ name was in contention for Kasaragod until the last minute, but it was surprise and agony for BJP supporters as the party opted for ML Ashwini, the Manjeshwara Block Panchayat Member. Even the leaders were left clueless about what transpired at the last minute.

PK Krishnadas, current district president Ravisha Tantri Kundar and ML Ashwini were included in the preliminary list but nobody had certitude that it would be Ashwini who would be making it into the list trouncing the two veterans of the party.

Many party members of the BJP voiced support for Shobha Surendran to be fielded from Kasaragod. BJP central leadership, not too overwhelmed with the suggested names decided to go with ML Ashwini, who is a fiery activist of Mahila Morcha at the national level and has the know-how to organization works and chiefly, can attract the core voter base. The party leadership also believes that Yuva Morcha workers and Mahila Morcha workers will enthusiastically come forward for Ashwini. This move of ditching all the senior leaders may yield some good results for the party.

Ravisha Tantri Kundar, who contested as an NDA candidate in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, got 1,76,049 votes. UDF MP Rajmohan Unnithan secured 4,74,961 votes and LDF candidate KP Satish Chandran secured 4,34,523 votes.