VS heads CPI(M) candidates list

March 18, 2011 08:43 pm | Updated March 28, 2011 03:09 am IST - THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:

The fortnight-long suspense over Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan's candidature in the April 13 Assembly elections had a dramatic end on Friday with the State CPI(M) coming out with its list of candidates headed by Mr. Achuthanandan.

The party State leadership announced the candidates list, which had triggered a controversy and State-wide protest following Mr. Achuthanandan's reported exclusion from it, on Friday after the CPI(M) Polit Bureau revisited the issue and decided in the Chief Minister's favour earlier in the day.

Announcing the names of candidates, CPI(M) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan said there was no reason to doubt whether Mr. Achuthanandan would lead the alliance because he was the unquestioned leader of the party. “There need be no doubt or anxiety on that score. He is our unquestioned leader. Then how can there be a question whether he would be leading the party,” he asked.

The CPI(M) State secretary said the party needed nobody's recommendation to field Mr. Achuthanandan as he was no novice in electoral battles. He was very much a part of candidate selection and nobody should try to pluck him out of that role. He had been in the fray since 1967 and had entered the Assembly in 1970. He returned to the Assembly in 1991, but was defeated in 1996. He got elected successively in 2001 and 2006. The party had its procedures to follow and had fielded Mr. Achuthanandan observing all such procedures, he said.

Mr. Vijayan said the party had also decided to field T.K. Gangadharan in the Mahe constituency of Puducherry.

The party has renominated 44 sitting MLAs, including eight Ministers and Speaker K. Radhakrishnan. The CPI(M) list, released by Mr. Vijayan, has 10 women and seven Independent candidates on it. The Ministers on the list include Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, who was expected to lead the alliance till Mr. Achuthanandan's late entry, Education Minister M.A. Baby and Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac. Prominent among the other candidates are former Kerala University Vice-Chancellor B. Ekbal and Kerala Tourism Development Corporation (KDTC) chairman Cherian Philip, who has been fielded as a party-backed Independent.

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