Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 27 (IANS): Trouble has broken out in Kerala BJP after a new guideline was announced at an online meeting. It appears to have brightened the chances of incumbent president K. Surendran of another turn.

The new guideline that the party has announced is that those office bearers who have completed a five-year term can again contest in the organisational polls.

Incidentally, Surendran has been at the helm of affairs since February 2020, when then president P. Sreedharan Pillai was given a gubernatorial post.

Just before this online meeting began, the general feeling was that Surendran would have to move out and there were talks of finding his successor.

But things went for a toss when the decision came that the mandatory five-year term would not be enforced and this led to an argument at the online meeting and saw those leaders who are opposed to the Surendran faction exiting from the online meeting, after openly expressing their dissent.

The Kerala unit of BJP has factional problems as there is one section led by Surendran which has the blessings of the former MoS V. Muraleedharan, while the other faction includes seasoned veterans like P. K. Krishnadas and M. T. Ramesh.

According to the present party guidelines, a new set of office bearers has to be in place early next year and for that, the party has commenced its meetings all across the country.

Even though the choice of the then 54-year-old Surendran came as a surprise, his term saw the BJP in Kerala having mixed fortunes.

Under Surendran, the BJP lost the only sitting seat Nemom constituency in the 2021 Assembly polls. But three years later, popular actor Suresh Gopi won the 2024 Lok Sabha polls from Thrissur, trouncing the Congress candidate who finished in third place.

Gopi won with a margin of over 70,000 votes.

Incidentally, on a few occasions, the national leadership expressed its displeasure over factionalism preventing the steady growth of the party in Kerala, but so far it has fallen on deaf ears.

Even though with the victory of Gopi, BJP opened its account, the real challenge for the new party office bearers is the upcoming local bodies polls, where stakes are very high as BJP sees a chance of ruling the most prestigious Thiruvananthapuram Corporation presently ruled by the CPI-M-led Left, where they are the main Opposition, with the Congress-led UDF a distant third.

Hence, it remains to be seen in the light of the change in rules for BJP if Surendran gets yet another term.