Almost all top leaders of the Kerala BJP, including president Kummanam Rajasekharan, will contest in the Assembly election to be held in May, as per the first list of 22 probable candidates finalized by the party’s election committee on Sunday.
While Rajasekharan will fight the election from Vattiyurkkavu in Thiruvananthapuram district, senior leader and former Union minister O Rajagopal will be the party candidate in Nemom in the same district, where he had lost the 2011 election to his CPI(M) rival by a margin of just 6,415 votes.
The party’s State election committee chief, V Muraleedharan, will fight the polls from Kazhakkoottam (Thiruvananthapuram) while former presidents CK Padmanabhan, PS Sreedharan Pillai and PK Krishnadas will be candidates in the Kunnamangalam (Kozhikode), Chengannur (Alappuzha) and Kattakkada(Thiruvananthapuram) seats respectively.
As per the first list, which will be formally announced with the central leadership’s approval later, general secretary K Surendran may contest in the Manjeswaram seat in Kasaragod district where he had lost the election by a margin of merely 5,828 votes to his Muslim league rival in 2011.
State party vice-president George Kurien has been given the mission of opposing Chief Minister Oommen Chandy in his home constituency, Puthuppally in Kottayam district, whereas another general secretary, Sobha Surendran, will become candidate in the Palakkad seat where the BJP is said to have a strong support base.
The BJP will draw up its complete selection of candidates in three phases. “The party will hold discussions with its allies, mainly with the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS - the political party formed by various majority community outfits led by the SNDP Yogam), at Kozhikode on March 15,” Rajasekharan said after the meeting of the election committee.