The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the nascent political party Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) finally reached a consensus during the pre-poll seat-sharing discussions.
The BDJS, which is a handle of the minority Ezhava collective Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP) chaired by Vellapally Nateshan, agreed to contest for 37 seats (with BJP backing) in the forthcoming elections. BJP and BDJS met in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday and agreed to the terms.
Later in a joint press conference, BDJS president Thushar Vellapally and BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan said that the parties overcame their earlier differences and agreed on 37 seats.
“We have arrived at consensus and it is decided that BDJS will contest in 37 seats. After another round of talks with the allies on March 26, the full list of candidates would be announced on March 37,” said Rajasekharan.
After the meeting, seats in Vamanapuram, Kovalam and Varkala were alloted to BDJS. However, BJP denied BDJS seats in few other towns and villages such as Puthukkad and Nenmara.
Based on the trial runs in the recently concluded local body elections, BJP is confident of ‘opening an account’ in the state legislative. In the local body elections, BJP won one municipality (Kasaragod) out of 87 and 14 gram panchayats out of 941 gram panchayats in the state.
BJP has already released its list of the first 22 candidates for the upcoming state elections.
