A day after the BJP announced the candidature of former Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan for the Kanniyakumar Lok Sabha bypoll, party leader and Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday kicked off a ‘Send Pon Radhakrishnan to New Delhi’ campaign-cum-slogan in the district.

Mr. Shah, who hit the ground with the a door-to-door meeting of voters, harped on the need for good Centre-State relations for development, and called for re-electing the AIADMK government in Tamil Nadu in the Assembly election. He assured the electorate that the Union government would continue to implement its welfare programmes.

The senior leader, who arrived at Thiruvananthapuram airport from New Delhi, landed by a helicopter at the AR Police Grounds. He was accorded a rousing reception by State BJP unit president L Murugan, senior BJP leader C.T. Ravi, Mr Pon Radhakrishnan, and AIADMK leader Thalavai Sundaram among others.

The bypoll to the Lok Sabha constiteuncy had been necessitated following the death of H. Vasantha Kumar (Congress) last year.

Addressing a BJP workers’ meeting, Mr. Shah wished that the AIADMK-led combine must sweep the Assembly elections. The BJP would help in taking the State to the top in all spheres of development through programmes from the Central government, he said.

The Home Minister said the Edappadi K Palaniswami government had ensured peace all through the last five years. Tamil Nadu had remained a peaceful state, which had attracted not only domestic investments from other States, but also been the most preferred destination for MNCs, he said.

For growth and development, good understanding and working relationship between the Centre and State was essential. With Narendra Modi at the helm of affairs in the Centre, the country would grow manifold to greater heights, he said.

Urging the party workers and functionaries to ensure that the DMK-Congress combine was kept away from power, he said that they should not win as their agenda was entirely different and the “State would be ruined in all aspects”. Mr Shah appealed to the booth level workers to be vigilant till April 6, the date of polling in Tamil Nadu.

Earlier, he was accorded a “poorna kumbham’ reception at the Thanumalya Swami Temple, where he performed special pujas. Waving to the crowds at a rally from Chettikulam intersection, the BJP leader garlanded the statue of former Chief Minister and iconic Congress leader Kamaraj. After addressing a closed-door meeting with party functionaries at the Udupi Hotel, he left for Thiruvananthapuram at 3.15 p.m.

In a brief chat with reporters, he said that the impressive crowd here showed that the people wanted the BJP combine to rule the nation. “When Ponnar [Pon Radhakrishnan] was an MP and central minister since 2014, he had brought in a number of development programmes for Kanniyakumari. All the good works would continue,” he said and wished the people elected him as their representative now.