KOCHI: Seat sharing in the United Democratic Front (UDF) for elections to Kochi Corporation and district panchayat has been completed. The Congress will contest 19 of the 27 seats in the district panchayat while the party will field 58 candidates in the 74 divisions in the city corporation.
Mayor Tony Chammany, deputy mayor B. Bhadra, district panchayat president Adv. Eldhose Kunnappilly and vice president Bindu George are not contesting.
During the announcement of candidates, district Congress Comm-ittee president V.J. Poulose said that the seat sharing and candidates’ selection had been done unanimously.
While several new faces figure in the list, the party has not projected any candidates for the mayoral post. As many as 10 sitting councillors of the Congress including five women are seeking the people’s mandate again.
Some of the prominent names to figure in the list are Leno Jacob, A.B. Sabu, T.J. Vinod, M.B. Muraleedharan, K.R Premkumar, Soumini Jain, David Paramb-ithara, Adv. Minimol V.K and Gracy Joseph.
Addressing media persons, party leader and minister K. Babu said that no candidate would be projected for the Mayor post and all women candidates had equal chances.
On not considering Padmaja Venugopal and Laly Vincent, whose names had been widely discussed for the Mayor’s post, V.D. Satheesan MLA said that they were not interested in contesting.
“If senior leaders like them want to contest, the party will definitely give them seats. The party leadership had discussions with them but they were not keen,” he said.
In the Ravipuram division, David Parambit-hara will contest against the CPM candidate Usha Praveen, daughter of former chief minister E.K. Nayanar. In Giri Nagar, where CPM is fielding its prominent candidate Monamma Kokkad, the Congress has nominated P.D Martin.
Grace Babu Jacob contesting in Ernakulam North and Deepthi Mary Varghese in Kunnumpuram are the other prominent candidates of the Congress.
In the district panchayat, the UDF is fielding RSP candidate against Sarada Mohan, daughter of former chief minister and CPI leader P.K Vasudevan Nair in Kalady division.
