Published On : Wed, Mar 14th, 2018

After Shiv Sena and TDP’s revolt, NDA loses its only ally in Kerala

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Thiruvananthapuram: Bharat Dharma Jana Sena, the only Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ally in Kerala, on Wednesday walked out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The BDJS is the political arm of the SNDP, an organisation that works predominantly for the backward Ezhavas. It was in December 2015 that the powerful Hindu Ezhava leader Vellapally Natesan launched the BDJS and soon joined hands with the BJP and its National Democratic Alliance, and his son Tushar was made the supreme leader of the party.

The BDJS leadership, especially Natesan, was unhappy with the national leadership of the BJP as his repeated requests for positions in corporations and in other posts had not been addressed and, of late, he had been publicly criticising the party’s state leadership. His visit to the residence of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in the state capital late last year had set tongues wagging, as he himself had time and again openly said that the BDJS would snap ties with the BJP and move to the Left camp.

Natesan, even though he does not hold any post in the BDJS, is the general secretary of the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) — the social movement of the Ezhavas that propagates the values of social reformer Sree Narayana Guru. The Ezhava community in Kerala accounts for over 50 percent of the Hindus in the state, which has a population of 3.30 crore.