Kerala Assembly polls: Congress will announce its candidates on Sunday, says Oommen Chandy
Mar 13, 2021
Kochi (Kerala) [India], March 13 : Congress leader and former Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy on Saturday said that the party will announce its list of candidates for Kerala Assembly polls on Sunday.
"Congress will announce its list of candidates tomorrow in Delhi. You all have to wait to know who will be the candidate in the Nemom constituency," said Chandy.
When asked if he will be contesting from Nemom constituency, he said, "Wait to know who will be the candidate in the Nemom constituency."
Nemom is one of the ten seats out of 91 that Congress is yet to choose a candidate.
The Congress party on Friday announced that 81 candidates have been finalised, out of the 91 seats it will be contesting in Kerala. However, it did not announce the names of these candidates.
"There are no disputes in the ten seats, candidates are yet to be decided by the party," said Oommen Chandy.
Nemom, a suburb in the state capital is becoming a focal point of the Kerala assembly polls, with all three fronts betting huge for a victory on the lone seat that the BJP managed to win in the 2016 assembly polls.
The BJP leaders had referred to Nemom as the 'Gujarat of Kerala" and to upset the apple cart of BJP, Congress is playing its cards close to the chest.
CPI(M) has decided to go ahead with V Shivankutty who also started his campaign in the constituency beating both his Congress and BJP rivals.
The Nemom constituency was won by BJP veteran O Rajagopal in 2016, garnering 67,813 votes against CPI(M) candidate V Shivankutty, who managed to get 59,142 votes.
While Congress-led United Democratic Alliance (UDF) finished in a distant third with just 13,860 votes secured by the JD(S) candidate V Surendran Pillai.
Even as the list of Congress candidates getting delayed, the main constituent partners in the Congress-led UDF, the Indian Union Muslim League ( IUML) announced its candidates on Friday.
While the Muslim League will contest on 27 seats, Kerala Congress, the splinter group headed by PJ Joseph having prominence in the Christian-dominated Kottayam-Idukki belt will be contesting on 10 seats.
Five seats have been given to the Revolutionary Socialist Party ( RSP) of which Shibu Baby John will be contesting from Chavara.
The election for 140-member Kerala Assembly in 14 districts will be held in a single phase on April 6. The counting of votes will be held on May 2.
