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Former Kerala CM’s daughter Padmaja joins BJP ahead of Lok Sabha polls
The 64-year-old leader accepted the BJP membership from the party’s Kerala-in-charge Prakash Javadekar at the party headquarters in Delhi
In a setback for the Congress unit in Kerala ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, its leader and daughter of former chief minister K Karunakaran, Padmaja Venugopal crossed over to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday.
The 64-year-old leader accepted the BJP membership from the party’s Kerala-in-charge Prakash Javadekar at the party headquarters in Delhi.
“I was not happy with the Congress party for many years, especially after the last assembly election. I complained to the party high command many times but there was no response. I came to see the leadership but they didn’t even give me an appointment. My father also had the same experience,” she later told reporters.
A former KPCC general secretary, Padmaja complained that many within the Congress worked to defeat her in the Thrissur assembly constituency in the 2021 state elections.
“I know exactly who all are behind my defeat in the last election. I complained to the state leadership but I was ignored. There was a point where I could not even work freely in my constituency,” she said.
The former Congress leader said that she joined the BJP as she acknowledged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a “strong” leader. “I want to work in peace,” she said.
Though Padmaja worked at different levels of the Congress organisation, aided by her identity as the daughter of veteran leader and four-time CM Karunakaran, she was not successful in the electoral arena. She lost all three elections she fought on Congress ticket — one to the Lok Sabha in Mukundapuram constituency in 2004 and twice to the assembly from Thrissur in 2016 and 2021. In 2021, she lost by just over 1,000 votes to the Left Democratic Front (LDF) candidate.
With this, the children of two Congress stalwarts — Ak Antony and Karunakaran — are now in the BJP. Anil, son of AK Antony, had joined the BJP in April last year and is contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Pathanamthitta seat.
K Muraleedharan, brother of Padmaja and the sitting Congress MP from Vatakara, said he would break off his ties with her as she “betrayed” the party.
“The soul of our father would never forgive her for allying with communal forces. She has cheated the party that our father built and worked so hard for. So I will not have any relations with her anymore,” he said.
Padmaja’s entry into the BJP on Thursday gave the CPM leadership in Kerala a motive to attack the Congress. Though CPM and Congress are part of the INDIA bloc nationally, in Kerala, they remain fierce rivals.
CPM state secretary MV Govindan said, “There are no ideological differences between the Congress and the BJP and so anyone can leave the Cong to join the BJP. That’s the situation in India today. In Kerala, the flow of Congress leaders was slow earlier but now it has speeded up.”
