The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) core committee met in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday (August 10, 2026) at a politically fraught time for the organisation.

In-house accusations of Assembly election funds embezzlement had roiled the party and also lent ammunition for the ruling front and Opposition to target the party’s State leadership.

The BJP leadership has not issued any official word on the deliberations at the core committee. However, sources said the State leadership weighed several pressing organisational issues. Notably, the BJP’s core committee is meeting for the first time since the party won three Assembly seats and also emerged second in several constituencies in the Assembly elections.

Funds embezzlement

However, soon after the elections, the party was caught in a cloud of controversy over allegations that some of its leaders had siphoned off large sums of money for everything from purchasing party flags to hiring helicopters for campaigning during the recent elections. Even though the allegations have been swirling around for a few weeks, the BJP State leadership has been denying all the charges. Moreover, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) had accused BJP’s State president Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MLA, of playing truant by being “persistently absent” from the Nemom Assembly constituency.

In this context, the delay in convening the core committee had also raised questions, with a section of leaders demanding its convening at the earliest. Amid the controversies, the party has also been fine-tuning its strategy on the Kerala Public Service Commission (PSC) protests to counter the fallout from the Jantar Mantar protests. With an eye on younger voters, the BJP has been raising issues in the PSC, including protests by those featured on the rank lists and allegations of discrepancies in the examination, consistently over the past few days.

The issue of jailed councillor R. Sugathan of the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation also figures prominently on the party’s agenda, given that the Corporation is the only one currently held by the BJP. With the Home department withdrawing a letter that enabled Thiruvananthapuram Mayor V.V. Rajesh to grant six months’ leave to Mr. Sugathan, who is currently in jail as an accused after being arrested under the Kerala Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act (KAAPA), his continuation as a councillor also remains uncertain.

Moreover, the BJP’s State leadership had hardened the party’s nationalistic stance by criticising the government and the Opposition for opposing the singing in full of Vande Mataram, which the party’s national leadership presents as a patriotic song on par with the national anthem. It had also sought to make a political issue of the arrest of Hindutva ideologue T.G. Mohandas on the charge of making incendiary and misogynistic charges against the Jantar Mantar protesters.

Published - August 10, 2026 08:33 pm IST