BJP-ally BDJS names candidates for Lok Sabha polls

The Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), ally of the BJP in Kerala, announced its candidates on Saturday for two of the four Lok Sabha constituencies it is contesting in the state.
The party named its state president Thushar Vellappally as the nominee in Kottayam and Adv Sangeetha Viswanathan in Idukki. The outfit, which draws its support mainly from the Hindu Ezhava community in central and southern Kerala, had earlier named Baiju Kalasala in Mavelikkara (SC-reserved) and KA Unnikrishnan in Chalakudy constituencies. With this, all the four BDJS candidates for the upcoming LS polls are in the fray. The BJP, which is contesting in 16 seats, is yet to name its candidates in four seats namely Ernakulam, Wayanad, Alathur and Kollam.
This time, there is a slight change in the seat-sharing formula within the NDA. Kottayam, which was fought by Kerala Congress (Thomas) in 2019, has been given to BDJS after the former exited the coalition. The BDJS, which fought Alathur and Wayanad last time, has instead been given Chalakudy and Kottayam this time while the BJP took over the two seats.
Thushar, who had contested from Wayanad in 2019 against Rahul Gandhi of Congress and PP Suneer of CPI, came a far third, polling just around 78,000 votes compared to Gandhi’s over 7 lakh votes.
At a press conference on Saturday, Thushar said, “We are very confident that the NDA will win Kottayam. There are issues connected to the minimum support price demand of rubber farmers, problems of paddy farmers, the tourism needs of the district that we will raise during our campaign.”
The NDA had polled over 1.54 lakh votes in 2019 in Kottayam constituency which has a sizeable Christian population. The current MP is Thomas Chazhikadan of Kerala Congress(M), a partner of the LDF.