Putting an end to the stalemate, Congress on Sunday announced names of 86 candidates for Kerala assembly polls with the party opting for K Muraleedaran to wrest lone sitting seat of BJP of Nemom, while former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy will face polls from his home bastion of Puthuppally and Ramesh Chennithala from his sitting seat of Haripad.
After announcing the names of candidates, Kerala Congress chief Mullappally Ramachandran said, "We are fully confident of winning this election. The list announced by Congress today clearly shows a generational change. Rahul Gandhi wanted such a list. He wanted new faces to be accommodated in the list."
There was no big surprise in store as most of the sitting MLA's managed to keep their seats intact.
The exceptions are SS Lal, a new face who will be the candidate in Kazhakootam while Actor Dharmajan will be the Congress candidate in Ballusseri.
In Kollam, where there were huge protests from the district Congress committee over not considering Bindu Krishna for the candidature, made the Congress High Command relent and she had been made candidate in the Kollam seat.
When KC Joseph, a staunch A Group (led by Oommen Chandy) leader, was denied the seat, K Babu, another Chandy loyalist, was given Thrippunithura overcoming protests from leaders belonging to I Group (led by Ramesh Chennithala). Senior Congress leader VD Satheesan will face polls from Paravoor.
Youth Congress state president Shafi Parambil will seek a mandate from his sitting seat of Palakkad and Congress strongman Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan would again represent Kottayam.
In Thrithala, VT Balram will be Congress' candidate while in Aruvikkara KS Sabarinathan will again seek the mandate.
Roji M John is a candidate in Angamali while Shmol Usman will face polls from Aroor. In Kovalam, M Vincent is fielded again to defend his sitting seat and VS Shivakumar is Congress' candidate in Thiruvananthapuram. l Akkara will contest from Wadakkancherry and Padmaja Venugopal from Thrissur.
PT Thomas will be the candidate in Thrikakara and KM Abijith will face polls from Kozhikode. From Malampuzha, CK Anathakrishnan has been fielded and from Aranmula, K Sivadasan Nair will contest.
The election for the 140-member Kerala assembly in 14 districts will be held in a single phase on April 6. The counting of votes will take place on May 2.
( With inputs from ANI )
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