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Nilambur ex-MLA to fight Kerala assembly polls as UDF candidate
UDF nominates former MLA PV Anvar for Beypore in Kerala elections, facing CPI(M) minister PA Riyas. Anvar's past includes corruption allegations against LDF leaders.
The United Democratic Front (UDF) has fielded former Nilambur MLA PV Anvar, who left the LDF in 2024 after a public spat with chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, as its candidate in Beypore for the upcoming assembly elections in Kerala.
State Congress chief Sunny Joseph on Monday confirmed Anvar’s candidature.
Anvar is likely to contest in Beypore as an Independent backed by the UDF, wherein he is likely to face sitting CPI(M) MLA and state tourism and public works minister PA Mohammed Riyas, who is also the son-in-law of the chief minister.
Anvar was added as an associate member to the UDF last year, after he fell out with the CPI (M) leadership over his allegations of corruption by senior police officers in the state, including ADGP MR Ajith Kumar, as well as the allegation that Vijayan’s political secretary P Sasi instigated a corruption charge against Leader of Opposition in the state assembly, VD Satheesan. Though Anvar had joined the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress, other state unit leaders of the party have not endorsed his entry into the UDF.
A coastal constituency in Kozhikode district, Beypore has been continuously represented by CPI(M) MLAs for the past eight terms. The last time a Congress MLA was elected by voters there was in 1980. In the 2021 Assembly elections, Riyas won by a margin of 28,747 votes over the UDF candidate.
