THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A day after the LDF suffered a humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha polls, BJP chief P S Sreedharan Pillai said Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan should own the moral responsibility for the drubbing and resign. In all 75 assembly constituencies of the state, the LDF was far behind, he said. The government and ministers were active in electioneering, he said.

Pillai said MLAs Veena George and A Pradeep Kumar who contested polls were far behind in their respective constituencies and they should also resign. The argument that there was a delay in selecting candidates in Kerala is wrong, he said. I was not interested in contesting polls, he said. Will examine whether flaws were there in electioneering in the capital city. Drop of votes were not noticed in Thiruvananthapuram, he said.

Sabarimala was not made a sale product in the political market. The party just gave support to the protests of devotees. We are still firm in that. Sabarimala is an issue close to our soul and so sticks to our stand, he said.

CPM had mentioned that religious polarization had taken place in Kerala. Our party didn’t do that and blamed the congress along with the CPM for it. There is no meaning in saying that the BJP was defeated in Kerala. In all the 19 seats in Kerala, a rise was seen in our votes. The coming bypolls will be approached seriously. The day Narendra Modi is sworn in will be observed as victory day, he said.