BJP likely to field O Rajagopal in Neyyattinkara

Friday, April 20, 2012: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in all likelihood will be fielding senior party leader O Rajagopal for the upcoming by-election to Neyyattinkara Assembly seat which fell vacant following R Selvaraj’s resignation.
A suggestion regarding this was put forward during the BJP state committee meeting held here on Friday. BJP believes that by fielding a senior leader in Neyyattinkara the party can achieve a thumping victory in by-election.
Meanwhile the first worry of the CPI(M) is the fact that the LDF candidate’s rival will be Marxist renegade R Selvaraj, whose resignation as MLA representing Neyyattinkara and from the party on March 9 necessitated the by-election. Selvaraj’s candidature is a foregone conclusion but the only thing left to be known is whether he would be an official Congress candidate or an Independent.
The CPI(M) the other day declared F Lawrence, a member of the Parassala Block Panchayat and a comparatively unknown politician in Neyyattinkara, as the LDF candidate for the bypoll. Though Lawrence has several plus points in the community-ridden politics of the constituency, the CPI(M) will have to first carry out a special campaign to familiarise him with the electorate.
In the existing circumstances, the CPI(M) cannot even imagine losing the Neyyattinkara bypoll especially as it had already lost the March 17 by-election in Piravam leading to the restoration of the original strength (72) of the Congress-led ruling UDF in the 140-member State Assembly.
At the same time, the resignation of Selvaraj had brought the LDF strength down to 67 from 68.