Rajeev Chandrasekar under fire
If the signals coming out of Marar Bhavan (headquarters of Kerala BJP) at Thiruvananthapuram are any indication, the party’s state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar is the most hated person in the Hindutva Party. “The sooner the party high command removes Rajeev Chandrasekhar from the post, the better it would be for the party. He may be a good corporate honcho. But Rajeev Chandrasekhar has no experience in managing a political party,” said a veteran BJP leader who doesn’t want his name to be quoted for obvious reasons.
The BJP indeed won three out of the 98 seats it contested in the 2026 Assembly elections. There is no explanation from the party’s Kerala chief or, for that matter, anybody else for the humiliating defeat it suffered in the hustings. “Had he been a person with minimum decency, he should have tendered his resignation and moved out,” said another leader.
Many veteran leaders and dedicated workers were sidelined by Rajeev Chandrasekhar once he assumed the role of party chief. Interestingly, he is the major shareholder of Asianet News, a severe critic of the BJP that specializes in propagating and disseminating fake news and fabricated views about Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, RSS supremo Mohan Bhagawat and other prominent BJP leaders. “We do not want the channel to support us or give publicity to us. But they can desist from spreading false news about us,” said Prof K S Radhakrishnan, vice president of Kerala BJP who was the vice chancellor of Sree Sankara Sanskrit University at Kalady.
Though party leaders had expressed their unhappiness over the channel’s antipathy towards the BJP and Sangh Parivar, Rajeev Chandrasekhar remains indifferent to their concerns. The Asianet News channel is full of flunkies of the CPI(M), hardcore evangelists and Islamic extremists who take sadistic pleasure in insulting Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. A Christian fundamentalist who left a Christian-managed bank and joined Asianet as manager has recruited the Marxists, Evangelists and Jihadis to occupy sensitive positions in the channel. The channel is a no-go area for Hindus, according to this pot-bellied businessman.
Heads of many coaches who failed to motivate the teams that took part in the recent FIFA World Cup 2026 have started rolling as the football bosses who hired their services were upset that they could not deliver the results. Carlo Ancelotti, the Italy-born coach of Brazil, Julian Nagelsmann, coach of Germany, and even Lionel Scaloni, coach of the Argentine team that played in the final match, are some of the coaches who would be “guillotined” in the coming weeks as they failed to bring results from the USA.
Persons like Rajeev Chandrasekhar should have been dropped like hot potatoes as they failed miserably to make any kind of impact on the electorate. The Hindus in Kerala watched in aghast as he and two Christian office bearers of the party rushed to Chhattisgarh to get two nuns arrested by the police of the state for violating the Freedom of Religion Law. The nuns were caught red-handed as they were trafficking two young girls to convert them to Christianity. The action of Rajeev Chandrasekhar is being seen as an effort to appease the Christian minorities whose obsession with religious conversion does not need any elaboration.
The BJP leaders of Kerala forgot the hard-working party cadre even as they paid obeisance to the cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests and even vergers. Hindus are the only segment of the Kerala population that is left uncared for by the BJP. The Congress and the CPI(M) are only interested in appeasing the Christians and Muslims, and the BJP too is going out of the way to placate the minority communities. A person like Rajeev Chandrasekhar who was brought up in a cosmopolitan atmosphere is a misfit to lead a Hindutva outfit, say his detractors.
Though the BJP took birth in 1980 and is inching towards the golden jubilee year, the party has not made any impact in Kerala’s political landscape. Barring late K G Marar and late P P Mukundan, there are no leaders in the party who have maintained good ties with the cadre. We have leaders like V Muraleedharan who treat party cadres with contempt and arrogance. These leaders are not going to make any changes in the fortune of the BJP,” said a top BJP leader. There are demands from a section of the party that a thorough probe be held into the leaders who have succeeded in keeping the party eternally weak. “They are of the view that the BJP should remain weak. If the party gets strong in Kerala, the leaders may have to work hard, and they would be forced to make way for youngsters,” said a BJP watcher.
The mistrust and mutual hatred the leaders have for each other could be seen from how the party state chief responded to the social media message posted by Prof K S Radhakrishnan. The philosophy professor demanded the sacking of Rajeevaruru, the head priest of Sabarimala, as he was arrested by the police in connection with the gold heist. He also demanded that the Thantric rights be removed from the Thazhamon Mutt, the family of Rajeevaruru, which claims the traditional rights of becoming the head priest. Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that it was the personal opinion of Radhakrishnan and the former does not subscribe to his views.
The track record of Rajeev Chandrasekhar has been found wanting because the BJP failed to win at least one seat in any of the 14 district panchayat councils that went to the polls late last year. It is almost sure that the BJP is not going to touch the double-digit mark in the next Assembly election under the leadership of Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
There is a strong school of thought which is of the view that the present party chief and his news channel are out to finish off the BJP once and for ever in the party. While Assam, Tripura and West Bengal have fallen to the charisma of BJP’s state chieftains, the case of Kerala is depressing and disappointing. It is a dog-eating-dog world. If a football boss is kicked out following his failure to win a championship, Rajeev Chandrasekhar should have been shown the door at least six months earlier! Having failed to make any impact on the BJP’s prospects in the state, Rajeev Chandrasekhar has turned his attention to Thiruvananthapuram Corporation where the BJP has an absolute majority, and mayor Rajesh is doing an excellent job. Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s top priority is to bring down the BJP-led corporation council, remove Rajesh, and to excommunicate him from the party.
It is said, though jocularly, that crab is the official animal of Kerala. Not without reason. The crabs which are kept in a vessel fight among themselves so that none of them makes their way out. If any crab succeeds in reaching the opening of the vessel, the rest of the crabs work unitedly to pull down the former. It is Bharatiya Jokers’ Party.
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
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