BJP now has more acceptance in upland and coastal regions of Kozhikode, says its Lok Sabha poll candidate

M.T. Ramesh, BJP leader, discusses campaign strategy and infrastructure developments in Kozhikode Lok Sabha constituency in interview with The Hindu.

M.T. Ramesh was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from the Kozhikode Lok Sabha constituency in 2004 when he was a Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha leader. Now, as State general secretary of the party, he is a much familiar face across the State, having contested elections in Southern districts too. In an interview to The Hindu, Mr. Ramesh discusses about the strategy he plans to adopt for the campaign this time.

Other than the developments of the past decade such as the railway station development and the widening of the national highway, there have not been many infrastructure developments. Valiyangadi, the trade hub of the city, is still the same. Kallai, the centre of timber trade, has only deteriorated. Patients are still lying on the verandah of the Government Medical College Hospital. The Comtrust weaving factory was a major company here. Now, it is on the brink of being sold off. As for the BJP, the party has been able to increase its vote share considerably in the past 20 years. We did not have a a foothold in the uplands and the coastal belt, which are Christian and Muslim majority areas respectively, in the past. But now we have members of the Christian community donning prominent positions in our upland units. We could not step into the coastal regions earlier. Now we are more accepted there too.

The problem is that many people have benefited from the projects of the Centre, but they are unaware of it because the State government projects them as its projects. The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana has been presented as LIFE project while the funds under the Swachch Bharat Abhiyan are being diverted for the Suchitwa Nagaram project in Kozhikode corporation. We have prepared a booth-wise list of the beneficiaries and plan to meet them personally. The Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra, though a good attempt, met with stiff non-cooperation from the part of the State government. The yatra was beneficial to a lot of people as it featured enrolments for Central government projects and the benefits were availed on the spot.

M.K. Raghavan of the Congress has represented Kozhikode in the Parliament for one-and-a-half decade. What he claims as his achievements during this period are actually Central government projects in which he had no role. Even during his first five years when the Congress-led UPA was in power at the Centre, there had been no developments. He is one of the MPs who has not even disbursed his MP funds properly.

Elamaram Kareem of the CPI(M) has been very vocal in the Parliament against the Narendra Modi government. But he has never raised a real issue that concerned Kozhikode. Earlier as State Industries Minister, he is known to have run down many industries. We plan to raise this question in front of voters, what these two as MPs have done for Kozhikode?

I plan to personally meet as many voters as possible. As a candidate to the Assembly from Kozhikode North last time, I had visited at least 12,000 houses. This time, we have more time and are planning to visit at least 90% of the households.