New party to comprise followers of SNDP Yogam, KPMS, and small caste forums

The Sangh Parivar is seriously hoping to ride a newly named political outfit, the Dharma Jana Sena (DJS), to a reckoning position in Kerala’s bipolar polity by 2021.

The DJS, which will be formally announced in a few days, will be a political consolidation largely of a ‘substantial’ chunk of followers from the SNDP Yogam, a section of the Kerala Pulaya Maha Sabha (KPMS), and an assorted bunch of smaller caste and community forums.

The new party is to be launched at a rally in Thiruvananthapuram. Informed sources said prominent citizens and leaders representing different communities would address the rally. They claimed the DJS-BJP political combine was poised to draw support from middle-level tearaway sections from the UDF and LDF. The organisers have already started the groundwork for a membership mobilisation campaign, they said.

The State unit of the BJP is enthused by the report of a Coimbatore-based psephology group it had commissioned to chalk out the prognosis for it in Kerala, analysing data for the past 20 years. The report has claimed the BJP-led NDA in Kerala can log the magic number of 72 in the 140-member legislature by 2021.

Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Ashok Singhal and BJP national president Amit Shah have already held talks with SNDP Yogam general secretary Vellappally Natesan in Coimbatore and Delhi to chalk out their future course of political manoeuvrings.

The BJP national leadership has even promised a berth in the Union Cabinet for the new party, once it is formally announced and the alliance becomes a reality, BJP sources told The Hindu.

Sources said the psephology group’s report had recommended that the BJP and NDA not overlook the ‘minority factor’ in Kerala, adding that minorities should be induced into the NDA fold. It emphasised that the strategy should be to win votes as well as the State’s psyche.

It identified 2,500 panchayat-municipal wards for the ensuing local body elections and 90 Assembly constituencies for the Assembly polls in 2016, in which the BJP can do well. The immediate focus will be on raising the NDA haul in the local body election in the State from the current 481 seats.

Issue-based support

Though the DJS is tipped to have a substantial part of its membership from his organisation, Mr. Natesan reiterated that the SNDP Yogam was not for forming any political party. He added that the Yogam wished the unity of the majority community. Asked whether he would object to SNDP leaders forming a new political party, Mr. Natesan retorted, “Why should we object? But, yes, our support will be issue-based.”