Two days after the Palakkad bypoll result, blame game has broken out within the Kerala BJP unit, with senior leaders pointing fingers at each other over the loss.

The BJP had high hopes from the bypoll in Palakkad, where it had finished as the runner-up in the last two Assembly polls. But the results Saturday were far from expected. The BJP’s C Krishnakumar not only lost to state Youth Congress president Rahul Mamkoottathil, but the party also saw its vote share dropping.

While the Congress has been winning Palakkad since 2011, the BJP has been building up its vote share in the seat. In 2011, the BJP got only 19.86% of the polled votes, but this grew to 29.08% in the 2016 Assembly polls. In 2021, Krishnakumar, who was also the candidate then, got 35.34% of the votes, just a little behind the 38.06% bagged by Shafi Parambil of the Congress.

In the recent bypoll, which was necessitated after Parambil won the recent Lok Sabha elections from Vadakara, Krishnakumar could garner only 28.63% of the votes, while the Congress got 42.27% votes. The CPI(M)-backed Independent P Sarin seems to have eaten into the pie, getting 27% of the votes.

On Monday, senior BJP leaders blamed Krishnakumar for the party’s vote share dip. Party national council member N Shivarajan said he had demanded the resignation of Palakkad BJP incharge C Raghunath six months ago and said he was responsible for the lack of coordination on the ground.

“The job of the district incharge is not to sleep in an air-conditioned room. Raghunath could not even win a ward in his home district of Kozhikode,’’ said Shivarajan.

Palakkad Municipal Corporation chairperson Prameela Sasidharan said it was wrong to have picked Krishnakumar as the candidate. “If the candidate was somebody else, the party’s prospects would have been much higher. We had told the leadership about the issues in fielding the same person as candidate again and again. We worked for him, but people did not vote for him. Don’t blame us (councillors). There is no point in blaming the municipality for the poor show. Let the party examine the reasons behind the defeat,’’ she said.

Krishnakumar replied that he was chosen as a candidate by the party central leadership, adding that the BJP’s basic vote bank remained intact.

“All my colleagues worked for the party. We are going to evaluate the election result. Never before have we seen such a massive and coordinated campaign. There is no rift in the party,’’ he said.

Amid the public sniping, BJP state president K Surendran said “The party would examine the result”, but offered to step down from his post if the party central leadership deemed it necessary.

“We could retain the basic party votes, but could not attract more voters. The candidate was selected by the party central leadership, and the poll outcome is collective responsibility. As president, my performance also should be audited. It is up to the party central leadership to decide whether I should remain in office till the term is over or I should step down,’’ he said.

Leading up to the bypoll in Palakkad, there had been a lot of back and forth over whether Krishnakumar should be fielded by the BJP or not. During the campaign, party leader Sandeep Varier quit after being denied the ticket, and later joined the BJP.

Varier openly said that instead of Krishnakumar, the BJP should have fielded either Surendran or BJP state vice-president Shobha Surendran to wrest the seat from the Congress.

ASER 2024 | Reading, math skills improve: What explains theSubscriber Only

How Pune’s 6-year-old survived Guillain-Barré SyndromeSubscriber Only

TN meets Jharkhand meets Tripura in PM’s Vadnagar schoolSubscriber Only

Why Trump wants to buy GreenlandSubscriber Only

In our Constitution, two competing visions of powerSubscriber Only

At home with Irfan Habib: The History KeeperSubscriber Only

Republic Day: How the passport mapped the journey of IndiaSubscriber Only

A creeping horror about how politics distorts the personal