Kerala Mahila Congress General Secretary joins BJP

Senior Congress leader and Mahila Congress Kerala General Secretary R Rashmi, who contested as a Congress candidate in Kottarakkara in the last Assembly elections and had given a stiff fight to Finance Minister K N Balagopal in the constituency, joined the BJP on Saturday.

Rashmi’s crossover to the BJP came after it was confirmed that Aisha Potty, who had left the CPM and joined the Congress recently , would be the UDF candidate in Kottarakkara in the upcoming Assembly polls.

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She accepted the BJP membership from state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar at the party’s headquarters here on Saturday. Chandrasekhar said she would be contesting the upcoming Assembly election. However, he did not specify which constituency would be allotted to her.

Addressing the media after accepting BJP membership, Resmi, without mentioning the specific details, said she joined the saffron party owing to her bitter experiences with a section in the Congress party. However, she denied that her move has abything to do with Aisha Potty joining Congress. “I lost the election in Kottarakkara against KN Balagopal by a small margin of votes. After the election, I tried to remain active in politics in Kottarakkara. But for that, we have to undertake several financial burdens,” she said.

Resmi had lost the Kottarakkara seat in the 2021 Assembly election to CPM leader and present finance minister K N Balagopal by a margin of 10,814 votes. She was with the Congress for over 20 years and had served as a member of Kulakkada grama panchayat and later as a member of the Kollam district panchayat.