Congress will declare the first candidate list for the assembly elections by the end of this month. In this, priority will be given to the existing 21 MLAs and candidates from reserved seats. Senior leaders met in Kochi and discussed this.
Kochi: Congress is preparing to enter the assembly election campaign by announcing the first candidate list by the end of this month. First, the candidates for sitting MLAs and reserved seats will be announced. Shafi Parambil’s stand in Palakkad will also be considered. Senior Congress leaders held an informal meeting in Kochi today.
The Congress aims to announce the candidates before the ‘Puthuyuga Yatra’ of Leader of Opposition VD Satheesan ends. At present, Congress has 21 sitting MLAs. First the sitting MLAs and those contesting on reserved seats will be announced. This decision will be taken keeping in mind the possibility of victory. The party will also seek the opinion of MP Shafi Parambil before announcing a new candidate in place of Rahul Mankuttatil in Palakkad. More than one name is coming forward after K Babu’s withdrawal from the election in Tripunithura. The final candidate will be announced after considering Babu’s opinion also. KC Venugopal made it clear that there is a dispute on some seats in Congress and it will be resolved soon.
Detailed KPCC meeting will be held tomorrow. Today, when there was a break in the visit of the Leader of the Opposition, senior leaders came together in Kochi. Deepa Das Munshi, KC Venugopal, VD Satheesan, Ramesh Chennithala, Adoor Prakash and Sunny Joseph discussed the announcement of the candidates. It was also decided that seat sharing talks with allies would be completed in the UDF meeting to be held soon.