Kerala Congress (M) has announced its candidates ahead of the Kerala assembly polls.
The Jose K Mani-led party, which joined the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) in October last year, was allotted 13 seats for the April 6 polls.
The candidates for 12 seats announced on Wednesday are:
Pala - Jose K Mani
Idukki - Roshy Augustine
Kanjirappally - Dr N Jayaraj
Changanassery - Job Michael
Kaduthuruthy - Stephen George
Poonjar - Sebastian Kulathungal
Thodupuzha - KA Antony
Perumbavoor - Babu Joseph
Ranni - Pramod Narayanan
Piravom - Sindhumol Jacob
Chalakkudy - Dennis K Antony
Irikkur - Siji Kuttyanimattam
The candidate for the Kuttiyadi seat in Kozhikode will be announced shortly.
Kerala Congress (M) did not announce the Kuttiyadi candidate on Wednesday considering the protest by local CPM activists against allocating LDF's new entrant their party's strong seat.
According to the list, Jose K Mani would contest from the Pala constituency, the seat held by his father and veteran Kerala Congress leader KM Mani for over 50 years till his demise in 2019.
Party leaders and MLAs Roshy Augustine and Dr N Jayaraj will fight from their sitting seats of Idukki and Kanjirappally respectively.
Sindhumol Jacob is the sole woman on the list. She has been fielded from Piravom.
Earlier, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) - the major constituent of LDF - had announced a list of 83 candidates, including nine independents, for the upcoming polls.
Kuttiyadi and Ranni constituencies, though considered strong seats of the CPM, were handed over to Kerala Congress (M). Kerala Congress (M) will contest five of the nine constituencies in Kottayam.
There will be eight candidates from the CPM state secretariat, including Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan (Dharmadom) and three ministers, KK Shailaja (Mattannoor), TP Ramakrishnan (Perambra) and M M Mani (Udumbanchola). The other state committee members are M V Govindan (Taliparambu), K Radhakrishnan (Chelakkara), P Rajeev (Kalamssery) and K N Balagopal (Kottarakkara).
On Tuesday, the Communist Party of India (CPI), the second biggest party in the LDF, had declared its candidates for 21 out of the 25 seats in its share. The other key LDF constituents Janata Dal (Secular) and the Nationalist Congress Party also announced their candidate lists for the Assembly elections on Tuesday.
With this, the ruling LDF is all set for the poll battle as major parties in the alliances have declared their candidates for most of the seats just before the Election Commission of India is scheduled to issue the formal notification for the Kerala Assembly Election, 2021.
