On Thursday morning, readers of the Pathanamthitta edition of the Janmabhoomi newspaper came across a strange four-page advertisement. Soon, they realised it was not an ad for a product, service or a government tender notice; it was a list of criminal cases against BJP’s Pathanamthitta candidate for Lok Sabha polls, K Surendran.
The criminal charges were published in the newspaper as it is mandated by Election Commission of India that all candidates with criminal records should publish this in three leading newspapers or thrice in a single paper, so that voters are made aware of such details before the polling.
The 240 criminal cases against K Surendran took four full pages of the newspaper, which is the mouthpiece of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kerala. According to the cases published, K Surendran has cases in almost all the districts in Kerala, but at a cursory glance, almost 90% of the cases are Sabarimala related. Surendran who lead most of the protests in Sabarimala had been arrested by the Kerala police for obstructing an old woman from entering the temple. Even when he was in jail, more cases were filed against him in different parts of Kerala.
The cases that have been charged against the Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha candidate ranges from attempt to murder (related to stopping a woman from entering Sabarimala), inciting violence, voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons, destruction to public property, obstruction to public way, use of obscene language and various other sections in various districts of the state.
Out of the 240 cases that have been published in the Janmabhoomi newspaper, it was found that Surendran has 68 cases only in Kollam district. The paper states that he has three cases in Thiruvananthapuram, 30 cases in Pathanamthitta, 56 cases in Alappuzha, eight cases in Kottayam, 17 cases in Idukki, 13 cases in Ernakulam, six cases in Thrissur, two cases in Kozhikode, 33 cases in Kasaragod and one case each in Malappuram, Wayanad and Kannur.
According to sources, publishing a four-page advertisement like this in a newspaper, which has decent circulation, requires at least Rs 20 lakh. This means, if it has to be published thrice, it will require Rs 60 lakh. The total amount of money that a candidate is allowed to spend for the elections is Rs 75 lakh, which means, Surendran will only be left with around Rs 15 lakh and if found to be breaking this rule, there can be serious consequences to his candidature. However, since Janmabhoomi is the mouthpiece of the BJP, it can be safely assumed that printing the ad would have cost Surendran much lesser or only a nominal fee.
The Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha constituency is a seat in Kerala that the BJP is hopeful of winning as they have led countless protests against the Supreme Court verdict of allowing women of all ages to enter the Sabarimala temple. And K Surendran has been the face of these protests, which even got him arrested and landed him in prison for almost a month.