THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The venue of discussions on the Congress candidates for the coming assembly elections has shifted from Thiruvananthapuram to New Delhi.
The KPCC leadership has included two to eight probable candidates for each of the nearly 92 seats the party is contesting in the list which will be presented before the AICC screening committee in the national capital on Monday.
The list will be pruned at the meeting before it is forwarded to the party’s central election committee meeting, which will be attended by president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday.
After marathon discussions over the past two days, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala and KPCC Mullappally Ramachandran flew to New Delhi on Sunday, accompanied by AICC organising general secretary K C Venugopal and AICC general secretary in charge of the state Tariq Anwar. Former chief minister Oommen Chandy, who is also the chairman of the election management and strategic committee, will reach New Delhi on Monday morning.
For the first time in the state Congress, the screening committee had decided to earmark 60 per cent of the seats for youths, women, and new faces. The KPCC leadership is yet to identify the candidates in Vattiyoorkavu and Nemom in Thiruvananthapuram district.
Currently, the persons being considered in Vattiyoorkavu against CPM’s sitting MLA V K Prasanth are KPCC organising secretary K P Anil Kumar, vice-president P C Vishnunath and secretary Jyothi Vijayakumar, who has been translating Rahul Gandhi’s speeches. In Nemom, former Kattakada MLA and former speaker N Sakthan and INTUC state president V R Prathapan are being considered.
Though screening committee chairman H K Patil had requested seat aspirants not to come to New Delhi, several of them who have not found a place in the preliminary list have already started lobbying from there. With the parliament’s budget session starting on Monday, the 19 UDF MPs will also be there.
A top KPCC leader told TNIE that the next two days are going to be crucial.The UDF’s ‘people’s manifesto’ will be released next weekend.
Even before the candidature has been finalised, seat aspirant and KPCC general secretary Vijayan Thomas has tendered his resignation to the Congress president. “My resignation has got nothing to do with the Nemom seat.
"My name has been included in the list of probable candidates. I have a difference of opinion with the KPCC leadership as I feel that there is no leader at the helm. I will hold a press meet at my house on Monday,” Thomas told TNIE.