Former ministers Shailaja, Thomas Isaac among CPI(M)’s nominees for Lok Sabha elections

The announcement was made by CPI (M) state secretary MV Govindan at AKG Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Tuesday announced its candidates in 15 of Kerala’s 20 parliamentary seats, fielding a mix of MLAs, former ministers and those in key organisational posts, officials familiar with the matter said.

Prominent among the candidates are former health minister and MLA KK Shailaja in Vatakara (HT)

The announcement was made by CPI (M) state secretary MV Govindan at AKG Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram after the list of candidates was approved by the party’s central committee.

Prominent among the candidates are former health minister and MLA KK Shailaja in Vatakara, former finance minister TM Thomas Isaac in Pathanamthitta, current state minister for temple administration and SC/ST affairs K Radhakrishnan in Alathur (SC reserved) and former education minister P Raveendranath in Chalakudy.

While the party has renominated it’s sole Lok Sabha MP AM Ariff in Alappuzha, it chose to bring in experienced faces, who spent a long time in the organisation, such as MV Jayarajan in Kannur, A Vijayaraghavan in Palakkad and MV Balakrishnan in Kasaragod to the fore. These seats are considered the party’s strongholds that were lost to the United Democratic Front (UDF) in 2019.

At the same time, the party has nominated young faces and greenhorns in the candidature of V Waseef in Malappuram and KJ Shine in Ernakulam. Both are considered to be UDF strongholds that the CPI(M) has rarely won.

In Ponnani, a stronghold of the Indian Union Muslim League which is an ally of the Congress, the CPI(M) has fielded former IUML leader KS Hamza with the aim of attracting votes of disgruntled IUML workers and leaders. Actor-MLA M Mukesh has been fielded to take on RSP MP NK Premachandran in Kollam while CPI (M) MLA V Joy will fight it out in Attingal, a seat it had won twice in 2009 and 2014.

All 15 candidates of the party will fight on the hammer-sickle-star symbol of the party this time, as opposed to previous elections when a couple of candidates had fought as Independents, Govindan said.

While four seats have been allotted to the CPI(M), one seat will be fought by Kerala Congress (M). With this, all candidates of the Left Democratic Front( LDF) have now been announced.

In the 2019 elections, the LDF had lost 19 of the state’s 20 seats to the UDF in a major upset for the Left parties.