Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday flagged off the BJP’s pre-election yatra, led by State president Kummanam Rajasekharan at Uppala in Kasaragod district, the northern tip of the State.
The ‘Vimochana yatra’, which will cover all the 140 Assembly constituencies over the next 21 days, is aimed at invigorating the party rank and file as well as the various Sangh Parivar outfits to take on electoral challenges.
Naidu, who said the BJP was the party of tomorrow in Kerala, urged the people to rally behind Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “developmental” politics. He said Kerala, which was mired in the same pattern of politics for six decades, needed a change.
This is the first Statewide campaign led by Rajasekharan, a full-time RSS pracharak, who was appointed the State party chief last month.
It is expected that by the time the yatra winds up in Thiruvananthapuram in three weeks, the Election Commission would have announced the schedule for the Assembly poll, and it would be known which parties would join the third front, led by the BJP.
The Baratheeya Dharma Jana Sena party, floated recently by SNDP general secretary Vellappally Natesan, is considered the most likely partner of the BJP.
Meanwhile, two other pre-election yatras are already on their way to their destination, the State capital. One is the ‘Janaraksha yatra’ led by the Congress party’s State chief VM Sudheeran.
The second march is the ‘Nava Kerala yatra’ led by CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and former State party chief Pinarayi Vijayan.