Kottayam: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has selected G Lijin Lal as its candidate in Puthuppally bypoll.

Lal is BJP's Kottayam district president. The official announcement was made by the party's national leadership on Monday.

He had contested from Kaduthuruthy constituency in the last assembly elections. At Kaduthuruthy, Lal finished a distant third behind Kerala Congress' Mons Joseph and Kerala Congress (M)'s Stephen George.

He could poll only 11,670 votes at 8.88 per cent in that election. Incidentally, BJP's vote share in Puthuppally was 8.88 per cent in 2021 when N Hari was its candidate.

The saffron party's best performance in Puthuppally was in 2016 when George Kurian collected 15, 993 votes (11.93 per cent).

Full-fledged campaigning for the bypoll for Puthuppally constituency is being conducted by the political parties. While Chandy Oommen is representing the UDF in the election, Jaick C Thomas is representing the LDF.

The bypoll was necessitated following the death of Oommen Chandy, who represented the constituency for 53 years straight, on July 18.