5 days ago
BJP national leadership fields KC(J) leader as the party's candidate in the Nilambur Assembly by-election
Ending weeks of uncertainty, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national leadership in New Delhi on Sunday (June 1, 2025) fielded Advocate Mohan George, a veteran leader of the Kerala Congress (Joseph) [KC(J)], a long-time ally of the Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala, as the National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) candidate in the June 19 Assembly by-election in the Nilambur constituency of Malappuram district.
The BJP State leadership, which had initially termed the by-election at the fag end of the second Pinarayi Vijayan government politically inconsequential, had 'poached' Mr. George from the UDF fold at the last minute, possibly with an eye on the traditionally pro-UDF Christian settler-farmer votes, a significant electoral bloc, in the Nilambur Assembly constituency.
Mr. George told reporters in Malappuram that he would accept BJP's primary membership from the party's State President, Rajiv Chandrasekhar, and submit his nomination on Monday (June 2, 2025).
Mr. George was active in the UDF politics in Malappuram and North Kerala, starting as a Kerala Students Union (KSU) activist. Later, Mr. George threw in his lot with KC[J], founding chairperson P.J. Joseph, and served on the party's State committee.
Mr. George, who is a member of the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, an oriental protestant denomination, stated that the BJP had approached him through Advocate Noble Mathew, a BJP leader hailing from the Kottayam district, after the Bharth Dharma Jana Sena, an NDA ally widely perceived as the political arm of the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (Yogam) [SNDP], a social organisation with deep roots in the backward class Ezhava community in Kerala, declined the seat.
Mr. George said Girish Mekkatu, a BDJS leader who garnered 12,000 votes in the 2016 Assembly elections in Nilambur, also proposed his name.
In the 2021 Assembly elections, the BJP candidate, Advocate T.K. Ashok Kumar, won 8,595 votes.
