The BJP’s Kerala unit, beneath assault over allegations of utilizing massive quantities of black cash within the April 6 meeting polls, discovered itself in a recent row on Saturday, with a candidate claiming he was provided Rs 15 lakh for withdrawing his nomination in opposition to BJP state chief K Surendran. The BJP dismissed the allegations as baseless and stated it was a conspiracy in opposition to theparty.
K Sundara, a BSP candidate of Manjeswaram constituency in Kasaragod district and a namesake of Surendran, had on March 22 withdrawn his nomination papers.Surendran nonetheless misplaced the election.
The similarity between the duo’s names is claimed to have helped Sundara garner 467 votes within the constituency as an unbiased in the course of the 2016 Assembly polls during which Surendran had misplaced to IUML nominee P B Abdul Razzaq by 89 votes. “The BJP leaders asked me to withdraw my candidature. I had asked for Rs 15 lakh but they gave me Rs 2.5 lakh only and a mobile phone worth Rs 15,000. I had also asked for a wine shop in Karnataka if they were able to win the seat. But once the election was over no one bothered to call me,” Sundara informed the media.
Besides withdrawing the candidature, Sundara had additionally joined the BJP. Manjeswaram was one among the many constituencies for BJP in Kerala the place the celebration pinned hopes on profitable. The BJP, nonetheless, dismissed the allegations.
“We did not offer him anything to withdraw his nomination. He had publicly explained why he withdrew his candidature. Now he has changed his stance. It seems like someone is coercing him. We doubt that he is raising such allegations due to the pressure from CPI(M) and the IUML,” BJP district president K Sreekanth stated. Meanwhile, CPI(M) candidate V V Rameshan, who got here third within the 2021 election, at present approachedthe Kasaragod district police chief in search of registration of a case into the matter following the event.
The CPI(M) has accused the BJP of utilizing massive quantities of black cash within the meeting polls. IUML’s A K M Ashraf had received the seat with 65,758 votes, whereas Surendran managed to bag 65,013 votes. Rameshan obtained 40,639 votes.
Earlier, a Janadhipathya Rashtriya Party (JRP) chief had alleged that the BJP had provided Rs ten lakh bribe to the chairperson of JRP, C K Janu, to contest as NDA candidate from Sulthan Bathery. The BJP had dismissed this allegation too. Meanwhile, within the ‘Kodakarahavala heist case’, the particular investigation crew on Saturday questioned the driving force and private aide of the BJP state chief.
The investigation crew, probing the freeway theft of hawala cash at Kodakara on April 3, three days forward of the state Assembly polls, had questioned RSS chief and BJP state organisation secretary M Ganeshan and celebration workplace secretary Gireesh. The Congress demanded a judicial probe into the allegations in opposition to the BJP management.
Senior Congress chief K Muraleedharan requested the state authorities to probe the allegations in opposition to BJP state chief and the saffron celebration. “Has the BJP chief included the rent of the helicopter in his election expenditure. Also it was the BJP central leadership which gave the money to the BJP candidates. Where did it all come from? All the black money allegations are being raised by the BJP candidates only,” Muraleedharan claimed.
The investigators had additionally questioned BJP Thrissur district common secretary K R Hari and Ayyanthole Area secretary G Kashinadhan in reference to the freeway theft. According to a criticism filed by Shamjeer Samsudheen on April 7, a gang had stopped his automotive on the Kodakara flyover right here and robbed Rs 25 lakh stored within the automobile when he was on his approach to Kochi from Kozhikode.
Though the criticism had stated that solely Rs 25 lakh was stolen, the investigators later discovered that the precise quantity could possibly be about Rs 3.5 crore and it was a hawala transaction, police sources stated.
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