BJP will not make any impact in Kerala: Congress

Thiruvananthapuram: The outcome of the upcoming local body polls in Kerala will be that the BJP will stay a non-entity in the state, state Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala said on Sunday.

"The BJP in Kerala will not make any impact and it's because of their own making. They have been trying to play the communal card and the agenda of the RSS just cannot be imposed in Kerala. Added to it, the internal squabbling in the BJP will ensure that they will turn  a cropper when the results come," he told reporters here.

The locals polls are to be held on November 2 and 5 and Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has made it clear the verdict would in effect be a referendum of the four and a half years of his governance.

Chennithala expressed confidence over the Congress-led United Democratic Front's victory.

"We are confident that the people of Kerala will give us a thumping win. The CPI-M is passing through tough times and the best that they can do is to stop advising us and ensure that their cadres are not lost to the BJP," he said.

Chennithala also claimed that the Communist Party of India-Marxist is groping and are unable to go forward as they are caught in a mess of the wrong policies that they pursue.

"They last won an election in 2006 and after that it has been a no show by them. After every election loss, they say that they have learned a lesson, but the fact of the matter is that they are yet to learn anything.

"This is evident from the fact that they have fielded two of their members, who have been arrested by the CBI as accused in a murder case and now out on bail. It's surprising that a leader like V.S.Achuthanandan, who has an opinion for anything under the sun, is yet to make a comment on fielding the two murder accused," he said.

Chennithala dismissed the 92-year-old Achuthanandan becoming a star campaigner and attracting huge crowds.

"It was the same at the recent assembly by-election also... and when the results came, we turned out to be victorious. We do not at all see him as a threat.

"It has been proved that in the past two decades in the performance of the local self governments, the last five years has been the best and Kerala last week got a national award for it," added Chennithala.

In the 2010 local body polls, the UDF won in more than 65 percent of the more than 20,000 seats in the local bodies.
source: IANS