Following Thushar Vellapally’s move to Wayanad as the NDA candidate in that constituency, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday night announced that they will field Malayalam actor Suresh Gopi as their candidate from the Thrissur Lok Sabha constituency for the upcoming polls. The decision was announced by the BJP Central Election Committee on Tuesday night.
Speaking to Asianet News, Suresh Gopi said, “The National Secretary of the party, on the directions given by PM Modi had called me yesterday morning and requested me to contest in the elections and I agreed.”
Along with Pathanamthitta and Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur is a constituency that the BJP is hopeful of performing well in.
It is for this reason that the NDA wanted to field a strong candidate from the constituency and opted for Tushar Vellapally. With Tushar Vellapally moving his candidature to Wayanad constituency post Rahul Gandhi's announcement, the question of who would be contesting from the Thrissur seat had risen.
The party believes that the 60-year-old actor who is currently a Rajya Sabha member will give a tough fight to TN Prathapan of UDF and Rajaji Mathew Thomas, the candidate for the LDF.
The actor had become an extremely popular action hero in the 90's and has played leading roles in many films.
He had joined the BJP in 2016 after meeting PM Narendra Modi. Suresh Gopi, who has been a staunch supporter of Modi's brand of politics told Malayalam media that he had agreed to contest as Modi himself had asked to do so.
Earlier there were also speculations regarding the fact that the actor will be contesting from either the Thiruvananthapuram constituency or the Kollam constituency.
In his two years as the Rajya Sabha MP, Suresh Gopi has 74% attendance, has asked just four questions and introduced zero bills. During his college days, he was an active member of CPI (M)’s student wing, Students’ Federation of India (SFI). During the 2006 Kerala Legislative Assembly election, he campaigned for both Left Democratic Front (LDF)’s V S Achuthanandan (in Malampuzha) as well as United Democratic Front (UDF)’s M. P. Gangadharan (in Ponnani).