New party to align with UDF
Lured by the United Democratic Front (UDF) promise of an Ordinance to prevent entry of women of menstruating age to the Sabarimala temple if voted to power, a faction of the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) broke away to float the Bharatiya Jana Sena (BJS) and to politically align with the front.
The party, led by former general secretary of BDJS N.K. Neelakandan as president, will have V. Gopakumar and K.K. Binu as working presidents. They slammed BDJS ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), for betraying the believers on Sabarimala and said that the party had worked to defeat the BDJS candidates in the recent local body polls.
Slams LDF, BJP
They also criticised the Left Democratic Front government and the BJP for allegedly colluding to ensure the Congress would not return to power.
The BJS has put in place a 15-member State secretariat and a 50-member State executive. The leaders claimed that a number of BDJS leaders at the State and district levels were with them and more people would join the party in the coming days.
The party leaders on Thursday met Indian Union Muslim League leader Panakkad Syed Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal in Kochi.
The BJS leaders criticised the BJP for aligning with the BDJS in the name of ‘Hindu unity’ across sections only to render the party ‘politically irrelevant’. The BJP-led Union government too chose to ignore the demand for an Ordinance on Sabarimala, they said.
