Che Guevara and BJP does not go together. But in Kerala BJP has a prominent leader who is known to be a hardcore Che Guevara fan. He even fought with his party colleagues for criticising Che Guevara. It is none other than C.K.Padmanabhan, the senior leader and former BJP president. C.K.Padmanabhan is the BJP candidate from Kannur constituency.
C.K.Padmanabhan, who is known in political circle as C.K.P is a hardcore Che Guevara fan. Hid not make it secret that he is an ardent fan of this guerilla communist fighter. He even has gone against his fellow party worker A.N.Radhakrishnan, BJP state general secretary for criticising Che. Radhakrishnan criticised that CPM volunteers are inclined to political violence and murder politics because of their adoration to Che. This ignited the wrath of CKP and he severely criticised Radhakrishnan.
CKP was born into a Communist family in Kottur near Sreekandapuram in Kannur. His father Ananthan Nambiar is a former communist leader and was the main organiser of ‘Kavumbayi agrarian revolt’. Kavumbayi agrarian revolt and other agrarian rebellions paved way for the Communist movements in northern Kerala.
In the initial years of his life, CKP was inclined to left politics. He started working in Students Federation (SF) and Kerala Socialist Yuvajana Federation ( KSYF), the former forms of SFI and DYFI. But later he joined give up the working class politics to Hindutva politics by hugging RSS. He left KSYF to join RSS in 1967. In 1969 he becomes RSS Pracharak. In 1970 he become Jan Sangh organising secretary and later when Jan Sangh become BJP he was elected as Kozhikode district secretary of the party. In 1981 he become BJP state secretary and in 1987 general secretary. He become state president of BJP in two terms from 1998 to 2003. From 2004, he is the national executive member of the party.
He was jailed three times. During the emergency period he was jailed in Viyyur central jail, and in Knnur central jail for organising Tali temple protest and in particiating Banladesh protest he was jailed in Thihar jail.
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CKP has contested for parliament and assembly for three times each but only got third place in all the elections. Now he is again in the battlefield for his party in native district Kannur. Kannur known to be a red bastion will see the fight between three natives. P.K.Sreemathy teacher, the sitting MP and her opponent K.Sudhakaran, the former MP and CKP all the three candidates belong to Kannur.
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