Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 29 The screening committee of the Kerala unit of the Congress on Thursday cleared the names of all 15 sitting MPs, including Rahul Gandhi and state party President K Sudhakaran, for the Lok Sabha polls.
The meeting was chaired by AICC representative in the screening committee Harish Chaudhary, state unit incharge Deepa Dasmunsi, Leader of Opposition VD Satheesan and Sudhakaran.
According to sources, the names of all the sitting 15 Congress MPs were cleared by the committee.
Of the 20 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala, the Congress fights on 16 and four are contested by the allies.
They collectively won 19 seats in the 2019 polls.
Of the 16 seats contested by it, the Congress won 15 and lost the Alappuzha seat to the CPI-M.
Both Satheesan and Sudhakaran will meet the party brass in Delhi to finalise the list and it remains to be seen if Rahul Gandhi will contest from Wayanad.
Meanwhile, Sudhakaran is understood to have informed the Congress high command that due to health issues, he is not very keen to stand for elections.
Sources said that even though the screening committee has cleared the names of all sitting MPs, it remains to be seen if Kodikunnil Suresh, the seven-time sitting MP from Mavelikara and three-time sitting MP from Pathanamthitta, Anto Antony will get the nod from the high command.
While Kodikunnil Suresh is understood to have informed the central leaders that he prefers to be left out this time and wants to be considered for a stint in the Kerala Assembly, there have been strong reservations from the Pathanamthitta constituency against Antony.
As for the Alappuzha seat, the names of AICC General Secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal and a few others are doing the rounds.
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