Kummanam Rajasekharan new Kerala BJP chief

In a top-level reshuffle in election-bound Kerala, BJP chief Amit Shah on Friday appointed Kummanam Rajasekharan as party state president, replacing V. Muraleedharan, who has been made the state election management committee’s convenor.

A party statement announced the appointment of Rajasekharan, the soft-spoken hardcore Sanghparivar activist, who has played a key role in nurturing RSS in the southern state.

The saffron party had recently appointed new state chiefs in Assam and West Bengal, the two other states going to polls in the first half of the next year.

Mr Rajasekharan, will take charge at the state BJP headquarters in Thiruvanathapuram on Saturday.

General secretary of Hindu Aikeya Vedi, the 63-year-old leader will lead the party in Kerala which is trying hard to break the bi-polar politics pattern — in which so far the Congress-led UDF and the Opposition CPI(M)-led LDF have been coming to power alternatively. The BJP, which had so far fought a lonely battle, has found new friend in the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam.