Actor-politician Suresh Gopi tipped for ministerial berth at the Centre
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New Delhi: Kerala's popular Malayalam actor-politician Suresh Gopi is tipped to become central minister. In the next reshuffle of the union cabinet.
Gopi's ministerial berth is said to have been on the cards of the BJP's national leadership apparently with an eye on the Lok Sabha elections next year as per media reports including one in news agency IANS.
The actor, who was nominated to the Rajya Sabha Sabha as a prominent cultural figure, contested once from the Thrissur parliamentary constituency and also Thrissur assembly seat, but lost on both occasions finishing third.
The party, in a desperate bid to open an account in Kerala with a parliamentary seat, calculates that with the added weight of a central minister, Gopi could pull more votes and make up for the deficit to win a seat.
The name of Suresh Gopi is very much present in the party circles and was heard to be made minister last year too. This time around, the rumour mills got busier with party chief JP Nadda and Union Home Minister Amit Shah having met Prime Minister Narendra Modi for preparatory discussions about Lok Sabha polls.
Reports emerging about this meeting say that the huddle at PM's residence discussed the challenges the party is heading to in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Kerala has continued to be impregnable for the BJP with the exception of a lone assembly seat of Nemom it won in 2016, but then it failed to retain it n 2021.
Hearsay has it that as a prelude to the party's preparation for the general election, some cabinet members may be shifted to party posts and vice versa. Reports about Suresh Gopi's entry to the cabinet come in the wake of such reports. They also indicate some changes in state party leaderships.
The BJP leadership is slated to discuss organisational matters in Guahati on July 6, and in Delhi on 7th, and in Hyderabad on 8th. The name of Anil Antony from Kerala, son of senior Congress leader AK Antony, and who resigned from the Congress and joined BJP is also being tipped for some organisational post at the national level.