Thiruvananthapuram, June 10 The CPI on Monday nominated senior party leader P.P. Suneer to contest the Rajya Sabha polls from Kerala to be held on June 25.
State CPI Secretary and outgoing Rajya Sabha member Binoy Viswam announced the name of Suneer, who is presently the state Assistant Secretary and had unsuccessfully contested against Rahul Gandhi at the Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency in 2019 and lost by a margin of 4.37 lakhs votes.
Election to three seats will be held on June 25.
Of the three, two seats are likely to be won by the ruling Left Democratic Front, while the third will go to the Congress-led United Democratic Front.
For a while, the two seats that the LDF could win had become a contentious issue, as the CPI was unwilling to part with its seat that was getting vacant and the Kerala Congress-Mani, the third biggest party, was very keen to ensure that its Chairman Jose K. Mani returns to the upper house of the Parliament.
There was a first-round meeting of the LDF on Saturday and both these parties stood rooted to their demand for their seats, leaving the CPI-M in a quandary. On Monday at the second round meeting, the CPI-M announced that it was "gifting" its seat to the Kerala Congress-Mani.
Earlier in the day, the Indian Union Muslim League, the second biggest member of the UDF, announced their nominee - Supreme Court lawyer Haris Beeran.
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