Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 27 : Amid reports of infighting in the party, the BJP's central leadership has asked its Kerala leaders not to wash their dirty linen in public.

The present impasse in the party's state unit surfaced after a debacle in the Palakkad Assembly by-election, when its candidate C.Krishnakumar's number of votes went down by over 10,000 compared to the 2021 Assembly polls.

Trouble started in Palakkad ever since Krishnakumar's name surfaced. What hurt the party the worst was seeing its vote share reverse in the wards of the Palakkad municipality, the one in which they held power.

A week before the polls took place, the party received a jolt when one of its popular youth faces in the district Sandeep Warrier walked out of the party and joined the Congress.

After the results came, a war of words broke out between the local BJP leaders in Palakkad and even the Palakkad Municipal chairperson- Pramila Sasidharan openly expressed her displeasure about the selection of Krishnakumar as the candidate.

Municipal councillor N. Sivarajan slammed the BJP leader who was in charge of the election.

The exit of Warrier, who openly slammed the state BJP president K. Surendran has dropped enough hints that more local BJP leaders in the district were expected to dump the party and join the Congress.

Even though for the BJP the reversal at Palakkad came as a jolt, they were able to put a brave face after their candidate at the Chelakkara Assembly by-election was able to get more than 9,000 votes as compared to the 2021 Assembly polls.

Facing opposition from within the party, Surendran got relief when the party's state in charge and senior BJP leader Prakash Javadekar categorically ruled out any change in leadership and refuted media reports on this.

However, at the post-election review meeting of the state leadership at Kochi on Tuesday, the mood was sombre as the national leadership has warned against washing dirty linen in public.

/IANS