Thiruvananthapuram: For the upcoming Kerala Assembly Election the CPM has decided against fielding candidates who had contested in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, though a few exceptions cannot be ruled out. The next state committee meeting will take a call on the candidate for each constituency.
Moreover, several CPM legislators and ministers are unlikely to be in the fray as the party state committee has also directed that those who contested two consecutive elections should also be kept out. The party leadership wants to avoid a situation where one particular person is being considered repeatedly for electoral contests.
The discussion on likely candidates for the state polls will take place within the party fora after the completion of seat-sharing talks with the constituent partners of the Left Democratic Front.
The state committee has postponed the talks on whether all members of the CPM state secretariat should enter the electoral fray.
Setback for several leaders
Only one CPM candidate was victorious in the Lok Sabha poll when the Congress-led United Democratic Front registered a sweeping victory. The Lok Sabha candidates are being avoided as the party does not want to present the same face again in back-to-back elections. So leaders like P Jayarajan, P Rajeev, K N Balagopal, V N Vasavan, A Sampath and M B Rajesh who had failed at the hustings would not be considered for the assembly polls to be held in a couple of months. Their names had initially appeared in the list of prospective candidates submitted by the respective district committees.
The decision of the CPM state committee has come as a setback for such leaders as well as several others who had hoped to get a party nomination to contest for the legislative assembly election.
Expect a few exceptions
The CPM leaders pointed out that the state committee had only issued general guidelines regarding candidate selection and there would be changes later considering the winnability factor in different constituencies.
The party has decided to give a good representation to youth for the assembly election. The representation of women in the candidate list is also likely to go up.
In the 2016 assembly polls the CPM had contested 94 seats, of which a few were party-backed independent candidates.
Govindan, Sathi Devi to be part of rally
CPM state committee has decided that one of two LDF rallies (jathas) will be led by acting state secretary A Vijayaraghavan. Central committee member M V Govindan will be a member of the jatha, while P Sathidevi will represent women.
