Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision on September 3 to induct former bureaucrat K.J. Alphons into his council of ministers has left the BJP’s long-standing leaders out in the cold. Not surprisingly, the state head office of the Bharatiya Janata Party here looked deserted when Alphons took oath even though Kerala was getting its first representation in the three-year-old Modi government.
But there was celebration in Alphons’ hometown Manimala in Kottayam district.
