Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 28 Despite bargaining hard, the second biggest ally in the opposition Congress-led UDF, the Indian Union Muslim League ( IUML) on Wednesday got two Lok Sabha seats and the sitting members have been asked to contest again but the two will swap their seats.
The names of their candidates- E. T. Mohammed Basheer, the sitting MP from Ponanni, will contest from Malappuram while M. P. Abdusamad Samadani, the sitting MP from Malappuram will shift to Ponanni, was announced by their party supremo Sayyid Sadik Ali Shihab Thangal after a short meeting of the top brass of the IUML at Malappuram.
Thangal said the IUML will contest from Ramnathapuram Lok Sabha seat in Tamil Nadu and its sitting MP Kani K. Navas has been asked to defend his seat.
Both the seats in Kerala are located in the IUML dominated Malappuram district and out of the 14 assembly constituencies that come under these two constituencies, only one assembly constituency is located outside the district in Palakkad.
For ages, these two seats have been the bastion of the IUML and the only aberration took place in 1971 when the CPI(M) candidate won from Ponanni, while a similar set back took place for the IUML, when in 2004 for the first time since the first Lok Sabha polls, the IUML candidate lost to the CPI(M) at the Malappuram seat.
The IUML started to bargain hard that they are eligible for a third seat and this time they will not back out and till the last minute, they said they will not back out, but as in the past, they withdrew and settled for the two traditional seat of theirs.
The CPI(M) has already announced their candidates and the selection of K. S. Hamsa from Ponanni, is a former top leader of the IUML had raised eyebrows as till the other day he was the biggest critique of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, while the CPI-M's youth leader V. Vasif has been fielded from Malappuram.
Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition V. D. Satheesan said that the talks with the IUML over seat sharing was smooth and it has been agreed that when the elections to the next Rajya Sabha seat which the UDF will win, will be given to the IUML.
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