Thiruvananthapuram: The P K Krishnadas faction was conspicuous by its absence from the BJP State leadership meeting held here to review the election the other day. 

BJP national executive committee member and NDA joint convener P K Krishnadas, State general secretary M T Ramesh and vice president A N Radhakrishnan were absent from the meeting. 

With this, the rift within the BJP which has been suppressed for the past many days became evident. The meeting was called by party’s Kerala in-charge Prakash Javadekar to review the election works in all the districts. Krishnadas cited travel inconveniences as the reason for his absence from the meeting.

Meanwhile, the BJP leadership sought to mitigate the situation by stating that there would be some who could not attend due to various reasons. 

In his address, Javadekar acknowledged that there are some within the party who contribute to news in the media concerning him. He also expressed his disapproval of news reports misattributing statements to him.

It is learnt that Sobha Surendran said that the party could easily find out which national leader had entrusted her to meet LDF convener E P Jayarajan. 

The review meeting was held on the basis of the reports submitted by the leaders who were given charge of districts and Lok Sabha constituencies. The BJP assessed that the party will win Thrissur, Thiruvananthapuram, Attingal and Pathanamthitta seats and will emerge second in Alappuzha and Palakkad constituencies. It also hoped that the Modi wave will help the party to make an advancement in the State.

Meanwhile, BJP central leadership included Kummanam Rajasekharan, Sobha Surendran and Suresh Gopi besides BDJS Thushar Vellapally in the list of leaders from Kerala for election campaigning in North Indian States.