KOCHI: The UDF district leadership will meet on January 27 for a crucial discussion to evolve an election strategy including preparing a list of probable candidates and seat-sharing in assembly seats in the district. There are 14 assembly constituencies in Ernakulam in which the UDF has sitting MLAs in nine seats. The meeting, to be chaired by UDF district chairman Dominic Presentation, will be attended by all sitting UDF MLAs and conveners of the assembly constituencies.
The meeting will specifically focus on wresting the Kochi seat which Presentation had lost to LDF’s K J Maxy in 2016. A senior UDF leader said Tripunithura constituency will also be in focus as the UDF always had an upper hand in the constituency but lost to LDF in the last elections after sitting MLA and then candidate K Babu got embroiled in bar bribery scam. As Babu has been vigorously working in the constituency for the last five years, there is a possibility of his name being considered as a candidate for Tripunithura.
“I had conveyed this to the party last time. But the party insisted. This time, if party again asks me, I will contest preferably from Vypeen,” he said. A senior Congress leader said the meeting will also take up the issue of K V Thomas. “It’s up to K V Thomas to make his stand clear. He has to openly deny such rumours. He is one of the most senior leaders and Congress workers look upto him,” said a senior Congress leader.