KASARGOD: Eleven candidates are in the fray in Kasargod Lok Sabha constituency, said an official statement. Notably, the SDPI, which came fourth in the 2014 elections, has not fielded any candidate. The last day for filing the nomination paper was on Thursday.
The big names in Kasargod are CPM’s KP Satheesh Chandran, Congress’s Rajmohan Unnithan and BJP’s Ravish Thantri Kuntar.Mayawati’s BSP has fielded Basheer T K while Ambedkar Party of India has fielded Govindan B. Four independent candidates - Narendra Kumar K, Ramesh R K, Ranadevan A K, and Saji - have also filed their nomination papers. The LDF and the BJP have fielded a dummy candidate each.The papers will be scrutinised on Friday.
Interestingly, the SDPI which garnered 9,713 votes in 2014, has not fielded any candidate this time. The UDF’s T Siddique had lost to LDF’s P Karunakaran by 6,921 votes in the previous elections.
Aam Aadmi Party also absent
The other notable absentee is Aam Aadmi Party, which fielded social activist Ambalathara Kunhikrishnan, who had secured 4,996 votes in 2014.With both the parties not fielding candidates, it would be interesting to see who would secure the votes of the AAP and the SDPI.In 2014, PK Raman, another social activist, too had contested and secured 1,222 votes. Abbas Mothalappara, who had been contesting elections for the past 20 years in Kasargod, too have bowed out this time.In 2014, he fought the elections on the All India Trinamool Congress ticket and secured 632 votes. No namesakes have filed nomination papers.