Palakkad, April 8 – NDA candidate Sobha Surendran has strongly denied allegations that a BJP worker distributed money to a voter in Palakkad, Kerala, calling the charge a "scripted attempt" to damage her reputation during the final phase of campaigning for the Assembly elections.
The BJP leader asserted that she would pursue the matter legally, including filing a police complaint against a media organization and its reporter, whom she accused of conspiring to damage her public image.
Addressing the media, Sobha maintained that her visit to Kannadi panchayat was unrelated to electioneering malpractice and was solely to meet a cancer patient.
She dismissed the accusations as baseless and politically motivated, claiming that her growing acceptance among voters had unsettled her opponents.
"Votes will be sought only on the basis of politics and development. I will not withdraw from this stance until the truth is established," she said.
The BJP leader also alleged that Congress workers followed her vehicle during the visit, prompting her to question their actions.
According to her, the situation escalated when one of the individuals accompanying the car made an inappropriate gesture. "If anyone behaves in a way that offends a woman, I will question it. That is exactly what I did," she said, claiming that such incidents were being orchestrated in anticipation of a BJP victory in Palakkad.
Her response comes amid a politically charged atmosphere in the constituency, where allegations and counter-allegations have intensified ahead of polling.
Sobha Surendran, a prominent leader of the BJP in Kerala, has been a key figure in the party's electoral campaigns.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Sobha Surendran contested from Alappuzha and, despite finishing third in the contest, she succeeded in improving the party's vote share.
Earlier, in the 2021 Assembly elections, she secured a strong second-place finish in the Kazhakootam constituency, underlining her electoral significance within the party's state unit.