Date:06/11/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/11/06/stories/2006110617510100.htm

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Krishnadas elected BJP State president

Staff Reporter

Election was through `consensus'

JUBILATION: P.K. Krishnadas, who was elected president of the Bharatiya Janata Party State unit, being led in a procession in Thrissur on Sunday.

THRISSUR: P. K. Krishnadas was elected president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State unit here on Sunday. It was one of the highly tense organisational elections of the party in the State.

Mr. Krishnadas, known to be a nominee of the party ideologue P. P. Mukundan, was declared elected "unanimously" by returning officer Pon Radhakrishnan.

The rival candidate, Ettumanur Radhakrishnan, reported to be an ardent supporter of outgoing president P. S. Sreedharan Pillai, opted out of contest.

The returning officer declared that the State council members have elected 20 members to the Natioanal Council also `through consensus.' But they included four members from the anti-Mukundan faction, O. Rajagopal, N. M . Vijayan, O. J. Thankappan and K. V. Sreedharan. Others are from the Mukundan faction.

The former State president C. K. Padmanabhan has also been elected.

Minutes before the returning officer announced the election results, Mr. Ettumanur Radhakrishnan told mediapersons that all the candidates from his faction, including he and the 16 nominees to the national council, had opted out of the contest unconditionally. He was asked by the party's national leader Sanjay Joshi to avoid a contest.

The nominees had also opted out of the race to facilitate the holding of elections through consensus.

Replying to questions, he said it was not clear if the four leaders from his side who had been given berths in the national council by the rival side would accept their nominations.

"That you will have to ask them directly,'' he said.