Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah will launch the campaign of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for Kerala assembly elections on April 9, a party official said yesterday.
“Shah will start the campaign at Pathanamthitta at 4pm on April 9,” state BJP spokesman J R Padmakumar told reporters here.
Kerala goes to polls on May 16.
The BJP has yet to open its account in the 140-member Kerala assembly.
“Shah will meet workers in Thalassery on the 9th and after the inauguration of the poll campaign at Pathanamthitta, will leave the same day,” said Padmakumar.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his cabinet colleagues, Deputy Chief Minister of Goa Francis D’Souza and his fellow party legislators are all arriving to campaign for the BJP in Kerala.
The party has been heartened by recent poll results. It doubled the total number of seats in last year’s local body polls compared to its performance in 2010.
The BJP doubled its seats to 1,100 of the total 21,871 across the three-tier local body structure in the state. Its vote share touched 14%.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, for the first time the BJP’s vote share touched double digits at 10.83%, up from 6.03% in 2011.
The state unit of the BJP has fielded its top leadership and has also managed to rope in former Indian cricketer S Sreesanth, who will contest from the Thiruvananthapuram assembly constituency.
Meanwhile, popular Malayalam actor Mukesh is all set to make his debut political campaign after the Communist Party of India (Marxist) named him a candidate for the Kollam assembly seat.
“It was the party which asked me to stand for the elections, and I accepted,” Mukesh told reporters in Palakkad yesterday.
On Wednesday, the CPM-led Left Democratic Front announced the candidature of Mukesh, 60, from the Kollam assembly constituency.
The nomination of Mukesh, who hails from Kollam located 70km from state capital Thiruvananthapuram, was announced after several rounds of discussions.
In his more than three decades of film career, Mukesh has acted in more than 250 films and has mostly played character roles. He played comedy roles in the early part of his career.
His popular films include Odaruthammava Aalariyam (1984), Boeing Boeing, Malappuram Haji Mahanaya Joji, Hitler and Friends.
Mukesh’s late father O Madhavan was a well-known Communist besides being a professional theatre artiste and writer, while his mother Vijayakumari was an actress.
The Kollam seat is at present represented by veteran CPM trade union leader and former minister P K Gurudasan. It was after several rounds of talks at various levels that the CPM was able to convince the veteran to make way for Mukesh.
Mukesh, who separated from his actress wife Saritha a few years back, is now married to dancer Methil Devika.
“Mukesh is very careful and does not do anything without a strong conviction. I am happy that he has been selected as the candidate,” said Devika, who will campaign for her husband.
The Congress is yet to finalise its list for the state polls.