Thiruvananthapuram: After high drama and several rounds of deliberations, AICC’s Central Election Committee (CEC) announced candidates for 12 out of 16 Lok Sabha seats where the Congress party is contesting. Candidates for the remaining three seats would be announced on Sunday as Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala said more talks were required to finalise names for Attingal, Alappuzha, Vadakara and Wayand seats.
Sitting Ernakulam MLA Hibi Eden has replaced sitting Ernakulam MP K. V. Thomas. Interestingly, the group leaders ruled the roost in the final lap where sitting Pathanamthitta MP Anto Antony retained his seat despite strong opposition from the local leadership.
Contrary to the usual practice of announcing the candidates at one go, this time CEC announced names only for 12 LS seats.
In fact, the candidate considered for Attingal is Konni MLA Adoor Prakash, lone woman leader in the high power Political Affairs Committee member Shanimol Usman for Alappuzha and sitting Kozhikode DCC president T. Siddique, Malappuram, DCC president V. V. Prakash and KPCC secretary K. P. Abdul Majeed for Wayanad.
Chennithala pleaded before the media that they should not use the word ‘dispute’ as the CEC requires more time to zero in on the candidates in the three
LS seats. But it is evident that CWC leader Oommen Chandy had purposefully stayed away from the crucial CEC meeting showing his displeasure.
“Only KPCC president M. Ramachandran and I had attended the CEC meeting. They require more information on Attingal, Alappuzha and Wayanad Lok Sabha seats. There has been no dispute in identifying the candidates,” Chennithala said.
Chandy had not attended the CEC meeting where he returned to Kottayam from Andhra Pradesh as he maintained that he had already held talks with Congress president Rahul Gandhi on the candidature on Friday. Chandy was allegedly peeved with Chennit-hala for not giving a chance to his loyalists, Siddique in Wayanad and Youth Congress State president Dean Kuriakose in Idukki. But at the end, Dean Kuriakose was successful in getting the Idukki seat. On Saturday afternoon after the screening committee meeting held at New Delhi, Chennithala maintained that this time the candidates would be “smart guys and gals”. But what has caught everyone by surprise especially that of the Pathanamthitta DCC leadership is the way Anto Antony managed to get back the seat to contest. For that Antony should be thankful to Chandy for not contesting from Pathanamthitta.
Former KPCC president V.M. Sudheeran and senior Congress MLA K. Muraleedharan who is also the KPCC campaign committee convener are most likely to be considered in Alappuzha and Wayanad LS seats. Muraleedharan is the sitting MLA from Vattiyoorkavu.
