Thiruvananthapuram: Former Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar was elected unopposed as Kerala’s BJP president Monday. He was the only candidate in the fray, obviously parachuted by the central BJP command and he will be one of the first presidents of the party in Kerala with no grassroot political experience.
He was declared elected by the party’s central observer, Pralhad Joshi during the BJP’s state council meeting.
Often called as the ‘Shashi Tharoor’ of the BJP, technocrat-turned-politician RC, as Rajeev Chandrasekhar, 60, is known, declared that he was assuming office with the pledge to bring the NDA government to power in Kerala where it is only a third party after the CPI(M)-led LDF and the Congress-led UDF.
Addressing party workers in not-so-fluent Malayalam, RC said he had been entrusted with the responsibility of leading the BJP-led alliance to victory. His ability to do so will soon come to test when the State goes to polls to the local bodies and the Assembly elections early next year.
He traded a few punches at the Left government in Kerala, questioning how long the state could survive by relying on debt. He wondered why the state depends so heavily on loans, why students are compelled to go outside the state for higher education and why there is a lack of new initiatives. Something is rotten in Kerala was the essence of his first address.
