THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: At the state office-bearers' meet in Thrissur on Friday, RSS leaders K. V. Suresh and Padmakumar were in attendance in addition to general secretaries M. Ganesh and K. Subhash, the RSS nominees in the party. The main charge against state president Kummanam Rajasekharan is that he is a rubber stamp of the RSS, which now has the state BJP leadership in its firm grip. There have been efforts from the RSS to shelve those BJP leaders from the state committee who lacked public acceptance.
For quite some time trouble has been brewing over the way the RSS has been taking control of party. Last month, the RSS honchos led by organising secretary (Prantha Pracharak) P.N. Harikrishna Kumar and Saha Karyavahak M. Radhakrishnan huddled in a daylong session in Kochi with BJP's four general secretaries K. Surendran, Sobha Surendran, M. T. Ramesh and A. N. Radhakrishnan, besides Mr Ganesh and Mr Subhash, to check factionalism. Mr Kumar has been holding a slew of meetings with the general secretaries to check on the schism for the last several months with little success.
A section of BJP leaders has complained that they are unable to talk in the state committee meetings which hurriedly concludes within a couple of hours allowing only RSS top brass to speak.
"Though efforts are on to silence leaders and remove those who lack public acceptance, it has so far not happened. But it is not long when it happens if Mr Rajasekharan doesn't take a stern stand," said a senior leader. While Mr Suresh, previously an RSS pracharak in Thrithala, has been given the responsibility of northern districts, Alappuzha native Padmakumar is responsible for the southern region. Sources close to BJP's lone MLA O. Rajagopal told DC that he is also peeved with the state leadership as Mr Rajasekharan is not consulting him on major issues.
The other day the 88-year-old leader vented his frustration in a television interview saying he will not contest elections anymore and is fed up.