The Bharatiya Janata Party's Kerala unit found itself in an embarrassing position on Friday after a function held in Kochi to induct fresh members into the party snowballed into a controversy.
The saffron party inducted 14 people, including family members of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor. However, it was later revealed that they were already supporters of the party.
“We were already BJP supporters. Don't know why the party arranged such a function now,” said Shobhana Shashi Kumar, younger sister of Tharoor's mother.
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Shobhana said it was up to those who arranged the function to explain the reason behind it.
Responding to the fresh controversy, Tharoor said his family members included supporters of different parties and some of them have been casting their votes for the BJP for years.
Tharoor, a sitting MP from Thiruvananthapuram, is likely to face a tough fight this time with the BJP fielding former Mizoram governor Kummanam Rajasekharan in the capital city.
Besides Shobhana, her husband Sashi Kumar was also inducted into the BJP by party state president P.S. Sreedharan Pillai. The function was held at a private hotel in Kochi.
The BJP had claimed that 10 family members of Tharoor would join the party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
The incident came a day after Tom Vadakkan, a former close aide of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, quit the Congress and joined the BJP.
