Attingal Lok Sabha Constituency BJP-led NDA Candidate and Minister of State for External Affairs of Bharat, V Muraleedharan, reached Thiruvananthapuram Kudappanakunnu Collectorate and submitted his nomination papers on Saturday. In a display of solidarity, the medical students who returned from the war front in Ukraine donated the security deposit as a token of respect.

Muraleedharan reached the collectorate in the morning after visiting Sree Padmanabha Swamy Temple, Pazhavangadi Ganapati Temple, and Sree Dharma Sastha Temple. NDA activists received the central minister from Kerala with a rousing welcome. He submitted his nomination papers at 11.30 a.m.

Muraleedharan said that his most significant benefit had been ten years of solid governance under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and criticism against the Kerala communist government on several fronts. He spotlighted PM Modi’s government’s steadfast commitment to rescuing and bringing back our citizens caught in dangerous hotspots worldwide. The minister listed the measures the Ministry of External Affairs took to repatriate individuals stranded in various war zones across the globe.

The medical students who returned from war-torn Ukraine in 2023 provided Muraleedharan with the bond amount on Friday. The minister said that he sees this money as the most significant recognition he has received for his public career.

The repatriated students and their parents visited Muraleedharan at the BJP state office on Friday and gave him the Rs 25,000 nomination fee for the Lok Sabha elections. Sai Sruthi, Sourav, and their parents represented the student body at the BJP state office function.

Sai Sruthi, a student at Zaporizhzhia University in Ukraine at that time, said, “We were evacuated due to the efforts of PM Modi ji and Minister V Muraleedharan. As a token of gratitude and respect, students and parents collected some money, and we came here today to present this amount as a deposit for his (V. Muraleedharan’s) election.”

The evacuation of these students was part of PM Modi’s Operation Ganga rescue operation. Muraleedharan spearheaded the efforts to repatriate the stranded students to Kerala. In total, the Kerala government identified 2,320 students from the state in Ukraine, all of whom were successfully brought back to safety. We must also remember the role played by Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the Minister of External Affairs.

“This is a token of respect and gratitude for the efforts to evacuate us from Ukraine,” they said. The students stated that this is the second birth of the students trapped on the battlefield, and they are thankful to PM Modi and Central Minister Muraleedharan for making their return possible.

They added that the students handed over the amount before the elections as a courtesy to the Union Minister. Muraleedharan stated that he sees this amount as a student gift and is committed to serving the people.

Several Islamist/communist students who were airlifted safely from Ukraine and their parents found baseless faults with the BJP government immediately after returning to Bharat.

Muraleedharan is married to Dr. K. S. Jayasree, a Sanskrit lecturer at Sree Narayana College, Nattika. The couple do not have children. Muraleedharan does not own a house or property. The property details are in the affidavit, along with his nomination papers, which were submitted to the Thiruvananthapuram Collectorate.

Muraleedharan received around 10 lakh rupees as salary, which he invested in fixed-deposit accounts. His family owns a car worth Rs 12 lakh and 164 grams of gold. Their health insurance policy is worth Rs 1,19,000.

Jayasree has Rs 3,000 in cash, around 20 lakhs in three bank accounts, and around Rs 4,50,000 in fixed deposits. They also have 164 grams of gold and a property with an appraised value of Rs.47,75,000. They also have a loan of Rs.10 lakhs.

V Muraleedharan faces Adoor Prakash, the current Congress MP, and V Joy of the CPI(M) in Attingal. Attingal is one of the constituencies where a two-way race is anticipated. Though Congress won here in 2019, Attingal candidates have chosen communists since the early 1990s. Joy is not a popular leader, and there are allegations of political adjustments between Congress and CPIM in choosing him as the communist candidate.