Rajeev Chandrasekhar set to take over as Kerala BJP president; central leadership backs nomination

Former Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar. File.
| Photograph Credit score: Reuters

The Bharatiya Janata Get together (BJP) central leadership is learnt to have nominated entrepreneur-turned-politician and former Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar as the following president of the occasion’s Kerala unit. Mr Chandrasekhar, who attended the occasion’s core committee assembly in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday (March 23, 2025), is predicted to file his nomination for the president’s put up on the BJP’s State headquarters at Mararji Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram later within the day.

He’ll unlikely face any opposition, and BJP leaders appeared assured that Mr Chandrasekhar’s election to the put up will likely be unanimous. Pralhad Joshi, the BJP’s central observer, and Prakash Javedkar, the occasion’s Kerala-in-charge, introduced Mr Chandrasekhar’s title on the core committee assembly.

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Mr Chandrasekhar is slated to take over the occasion’s reins from incumbent Ok. Surendran, who has led it since 2020. Mr Chandrasekhar’s elevation as the BJP State President is, in a approach, an acknowledgement of his robust efficiency within the high-profile 2024 Lok Sabha elections within the Thiruvananthapuram constituency, the place he gave a detailed combat to Congress chief Shashi Tharoor. Till then, Mr Chandrasekhar was based mostly in Karnataka, a State he represented within the Rajya Sabha for 3 phrases. He then shifted his base to Kerala to mount a difficult election marketing campaign.

By appointing him, the BJP seeks to widen its base, particularly among the many aspirational youthful crowd whom Mr. Chandrasekhar had explicitly focused in his Lok Sabha marketing campaign. Furthermore, Mr Chandrasekhar’s elevation to the put up comes at a vital time, when the BJP is mobilising its election equipment from the sales space stage upwards to combat the native physique polls and the Meeting elections in 2026.

Within the mid-Nineteen Nineties, Mr.Chandrasekhar was one of many tech entrepreneurs who launched BPL Cell, tapping into the rising discipline of cell telephony. Although he exited the sector a decade later, he based Jupiter Capital, an funding and monetary companies agency that now manages belongings throughout a number of sectors. Later, Mr Chandrasekhar additionally took over management of Asianet Information, one in every of Malayalam’s present prime information channels. Within the earlier Nationwide Democratic Alliance (NDA) authorities, he was the Union Minister of State for Electronics and Info Expertise, Ability Growth and Entrepreneurship, and Jal Shakti.

The Kerala Police had in 2023 registered instances in opposition to him on prices of creating communally instigative social media posts in reference to the blasts at a prayer conference of Jehovah’s Witnesses at Kalamassery in Kochi.

Aside from Mr Chandrasekhar, the names of State normal secretary M.T. Ramesh, present State vice-president Sobha Surendran, former State president and former Union minister V. Muraeedharan, and incumbent president Mr Surendran as seemingly candidates for the BJP State president’s put up had been in energetic circulation within the public area. Nevertheless, the decks turned in his favour with the central leadership backing Mr Chandrasekhar. The Bharath Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), an ally of the BJP in Kerala, can be learnt to have supported his elevation as the State president.