BJP urges Thalassery voters to use their conscience to vote for Kerala Assembly polls

According to reports, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has instructed the activists to cast their votes of conscience in Thalassery where there is no candidate for NDA. It is reportedly, the BJP's district leadership has instructed people to vote according to their conscience.

The decision comes as COT Nazir, an independent candidate in the constituency, has declared that he does not need BJP's support.

In Kannur, Thalassery is the constituency with the highest number of BJP votes. Earlier, the Returning Officers had rejected nominations of N Haridas in Thalassery, Dhanalakshmi Marimuthu in Devikulam and Niveditha in Guruvaur for not having the signature of the BJP national president.

In Thalasseri, N Haridas’ petition was rejected on the basis that he didn’t submit Form A with BJP national president JP Nadda’s signature. While in Guruvayur, BJP’s Adv Nivedita’s petition was rejected since she had “submitted an affidavit without state president K Surendran’s signature”.

Later, the candidates had approached the High Court. However, the High Court dismissed the plea citing that it cannot intervene. The Court said that it cannot interfere in the decisions taken by the Returning Officers of the respective constituencies to reject the nomination papers for not adhere to requirements..

Meanwhile, reportedly Union Minister V Muraleedharan rejected the BJP's district leadership's instruction for people to cast their votes according to their conscience and clarified that BJP will support the person declared by the state president.