Leaders fail to reach consensus on Kummanam's successor

Palakkad: A crucial BJP leaders' meet convened here to evolve a consensus among State general secretaries to choose a new State president failed to reach a consensus. The meeting was covened by BJP organizing joint secretary BL Santhosh here on Tuesday, but three of the four key functionaries skipped the meeting.

Of the four, only K. Surendran arrived at the meeting held at the residence of a district leader. Those who skipped pleading personal reasons were Shobha Surendran, A.N. Radhakrishnan, and M.T. Ramesh.

However, the version of the party State leadership was that it was not a formal meeting, and that the national leader chose to meet the State general secretaries when he arrived in Palakkad to call on the top RSS leaders in the State.

The party also claimed that the failure of the three leaders to meet Mr. Santhosh was not linked to the alleged factionalism within the State unit.

However, sources close to Mr. Surendran said Mr. Santhosh called for the meeting in view of the failure of the State leadership to find a State unit chief even two weeks after the resignation of Kummanam Rajasekharan, who was moved to assume duty as as Mizoram Governor.

The general secretaries had reportedly informed Mr. Santhosh that they would not attend the meeting. The meeting was said to be convened to evolve a consensus in favour of Mr. Surendran, who had the blessings of former State president V. Muraleedharan, MP.

However, the other groups were reportedly of the view that the elevation of Mr. Surendran as State president would worsen factionalism in the party.