Surendran: BJP Leader K Surendran Acquitted in Alleged Election Bribery Case |

Kasaragod: The sessions court in the district acquired BJP state president K Surendran and five others in the Manjeshwar election bribery case, on Saturday.
Surendran and the other five accused — BJP Kasaragod district secretary K Manikanda Rai, Suresh Naik, Yuva Morcha’s Sunil Naik, former BJP district president K Balakrishna Shetty and Lokesh Nonda — filed a discharge petition in Sept 2023.They claimed that the case was fabricated with political motives.
The accused were discharged by Kasaragod sessions judge Sanu S Panicker. The judge, allowing the discharge plea of ​​the accused, said that the first accused — Surendran — was discharged of the offenses under various provisions of the IPC and the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (prevention of atrocities) Act 1989.
“Since the first accused is discharged of the alleged offenses, I do not find any grounds to proceed against the other accused also. Therefore, they are also discharged of all the alleged offenses,” the judge said.
As per the case, Surendran and others accused bribed BSP candidate K Sundara with Rs 2.5 lakh and a smartphone to withdraw his candidature in the 2021 assembly elections. Surendran, who was the BJP candidate in Manjeshwar, was the prime accused. Although Sundara had raised the bribery allegation, he had not filed a case. The bribery case was registered based on a complaint lodged by VV Ramehan, CPM candidate in the constituency in the assembly polls. Police registered a case following a directive from the Kasaragod first class magistrate court.
After the verdict, Surendran said that truth prevailed and that the case was fabricated to ruin his political prospects.
Opposition leader VD Satheesan said that Surendran’s discharge proves the CPM-BJP mutual arrangement not to harm each other. I have alleged that the prosecution did not argue the case properly, leading to the discharge of the accused.
Satheesan said that govt helped BJP and has been helping it for a long time since the Kodakara hawala money case in which Surendran was also allegedly involved.