New Delhi: Seven-time MLA P.C. George has merged the Kerala Janapaksham (Secular), which was registered as a political party in 2017, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The merger was announced Wednesday in the presence of Union ministers Rajeev Chandrasekhar and V. Muraleedharan, besides Prakash Javadekar, the party’s Kerala incharge.
This is the second time since 2018 that George has aligned with the BJP, which has been relentless in its efforts to woo the Christian community ahead of the general election slated for later this year.
“George is a veteran of Kerala politics and has attacked the Left-led (LDF) and Congress-led (UDF) alliances on the issue of corruption. He comes from the Catholic community and his decision to join the BJP will help the party improve its (electoral) performance in the state,” said Javadekar as he inducted George into the BJP. The former Union minister added that the party aims to win “at least five” of the state’s 20 Lok Sabha seats.
Muraleedharan added that George’s “leadership will strengthen the BJP’s roots” in Kerala and help the party increase its tally of Lok Sabha seats.
Seven-time Kerala MLA PC George's Kerala Janapaksham (Secular) merges with the BJP in New Delhi. https://t.co/gxf59MlBpC
— BJP (@BJP4India) January 31, 2024
The BJP, which has never won a Lok Sabha seat in Kerala, has been trying to make inroads in the state. Last month, it launched a statewide ‘Sneha Yatra’ with an eye on the Christian vote. Before that, Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with leaders of the Christian community at his official residence in New Delhi on the occasion of Christmas.
Modi has visited Kerala twice over the past month.
The idea behind this outreach is to woo Kerala Christians, who have traditionally voted for the Congress. To that effect, the BJP inducted Congress’ former national spokesperson Tom Vadakkan into the party in March 2019. In April last year, it also welcomed Congress stalwart A.K. Antony’s son Anil into the party. But unlike the two, George can be an effective campaigner for the party in districts where Christians make up more than 40 percent of the population, including Kottayam and Idukki.
“George, who parted ways with the party over the Sabarimala issue, was interested in joining the NDA but the leadership insisted that he merge his party with the BJP. He is now interested in contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Pathanamthitta seat. He has earlier contested from the Poonjar assembly seat which falls under Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha limits,” a central BJP leader told ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
Kerala BJP chief K. Surendran had unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Pathanamthitta, securing third place with 28.95 percent of the total votes polled in the constituency.
“This time around, Surendran could be fielded from Kottayam where two factions of the Kerala Congress (M) plan to field their candidates. George, on the other hand, will be useful for the party in other Christian-dominated seats where the BJP has not been able to gain traction owing to the absence of any mass leader,” added the BJP leader who did not want to be named.
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PC George’s political graph
George was elected to the state legislature first in 1980 from Poonjar on the Kerala Congress (Joseph) symbol. He retained the seat in 1982 but lost it in 1987. Though he chose not to contest the 1991 polls, George won the seat in 1996 and again in 2001. He retained the seat with the support of the LDF in 2006. In 2011, he won the seat as a Kerala Congress (M) candidate.
The Kerala Congress (Secular), which he founded in 2006, later split into various factions. Among those factions was the Kerala Janapaksham (Secular), which George headed and has now merged with the BJP.
George, who represented the Poonjar assembly seat for three decades before losing it to Sebastian Kulathungal of the LDF in 2021, has in the past allied with both the LDF and the UDF. He was elected to the state legislature as an Independent MLA from Poonjar in 2017.
Though he walked out of the BJP-led NDA in 2019 citing the party’s ‘failure to stand up for minorities and protect secularism’, George’s recent statements seem to align with the narrative of the BJP. He even accused CM Pinarayi Vijayan and the Congress of trying to ‘appease Muslims’.
In May 2022, George was arrested for delivering an inflammatory speech targeting Muslims during a meeting of Hindu priests in Thiruvananthapuram but was later released on bail.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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