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Kerala: Ex-ministers Shailaja, Isaac among CPI(M)’s nominees for Lok Sabha polls
The Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Kerala has allotted 15 seats to the CPI(M), four to the CPI and one to the Kerala Congress (M)
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPIM 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.
The announcement was made by the party’s state secretary MV Govindan at the AKG Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram after the list of candidates was approved by the party’s central committee.
Prominent among the candidates are state minister for temple administration and SC/ST affairs K Radhakrishnan in Alathur (SC reserved), former health minister and MLA, KK Shailaja in Vatakara, former finance minister TM Thomas Isaac in Pathanamthitta, and former education minister P Raveendranath in Chalakudy.
While the party has renominated its 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. These are the party’s strongholds that were lost to the UDF in 2019.
At the same time, it has nominated young and debut faces in the candidature of V Waseef in Malappuram and KJ Shine, a woman, in Ernakulam. Both are considered UDF strongholds that the CPI(M) rarely won.
In Ponnani, a stronghold of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), 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 Communist Party of India (CPI), one seat will be fought by the Kerala Congress (M). With this, all candidates of the Left Democratic Left (LDF) have now been announced.
In the 2019 elections, the LDF lost 19 of the state’s 20 seats to the UDF in a major upset for the Left parties.
