South push: PM holds roadshow in Kerala’s Palakkad

On his second visit to Kerala in just a span of five days, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a massive roadshow in Palakkad town on Tuesday as part of efforts to give a fillip to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) campaign for the Lok Sabha elections in Kerala.
Starting the day at around 10.45 am, PM Modi climbed aboard a campaign jeep at the Anchuvilakku junction in the town and led the roadshow through a heavily barricaded road with hundreds of BJP supporters, raising party slogans and throwing flowers in the air from both sides.
The PM was accompanied in the vehicle by Palakkad BJP candidate C Krishnakumar, Ponnani BJP candidate Nivedita Subramaniyan and state party president K Surendran.
The party estimated that around 50,000 people attended the one-km-long roadshow in the town from Anchuvilakku to head post office junction. The roadshow concluded at 11.15 am post which the PM departed for the helipad for his onward journey to Salem in Tamil Nadu.
Palakkad is an “A-class” category constituency for the BJP as it wields considerable influence there particularly in the town area where it also controls the local municipality. Though it finished third in the 2019 elections behind the United Democratic Front (UDF) and Left Democratic Front (LDF), the BJP was able to garner over 21% of the votes with a substantial rise in support compared to 2014. Krishnakumar, who was the party candidate in 2019, has been fielded again as he has been active in the constituency for the past five years.
At the same time, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) alleged that M Abdul Salam, the BJP candidate in Malappuram, was denied a place on the campaign vehicle during Modi’s roadshow.
“The BJP had earlier said that the candidates of Malappuram, Ponnani and Palakkad would be there (alongside the PM). But while the candidates from Ponnani and Palakkad were there in the vehicle, the candidate from Malappuram, who belongs to a minority community, wasn’t allowed. This is sending the wrong message,” CPM central committee member AK Balan told reporters.
However, Salam dismissed the accusations that he was insulted. “My name was not in the list of those accompanying the PM in the vehicle. I went there to meet the PM, take a photograph with him that can be used for campaign posters and above all, invite him to Malappuram. There will be a change (here) if he comes as he is good at diplomacy. The CPM is just playing politics,” he said.
Reacting to the PM’s visit to Kerala, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh recalled that the PM had infamously compared the state to Somalia. “Kerala’s performance on development indicators has been consistently better than all Indian states. Will the Prime Minister finally apologise to the people of Kerala for the misleading commentary on the state?” the Congress leader wrote on X.
Kerala, which is scheduled to vote on April 26 in a single phase of the Lok Sabha elections, has 20 parliamentary seats. While the LDF and UDF have announced candidates in all 20 seats, the BJP is yet to field its nominees in four seats including Wayanad where former Congress president Rahul Gandhi is contesting.