Last month, the V.D. Satheesan committee set up by the KPCC for the selection of Congress nominees for the elections to local bodies had called for discouraging the practice of spouses contesting in the same ward by turn.
But in the Thampanoor ward, a key constituency in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, the recommendation remains on paper. Much to the chagrin of other ticket aspirants, the ward committee has chosen Biju Harikumar, wife of the sitting councillor R. Harikumar, as the party nominee for the constituency reserved for women. While Mr. Harikumar has already had two tenures as ward councillor, having been returned from the Secretariat ward in the 2000 elections and the Thampanoor ward in 2010, his wife represented the Secretariat ward in the 2005 elections.
“The duo has had an interrupted tenure of 15 years in the Corporation Council. If the Congress is unable to come up with another name as nominee in the key ward, it will only be interpreted as a dismal situation for the party,” says a Congress worker, critical of the selection. But there are others who feel that chances for victory had dictated the choice of candidate more than anything else.
According to the package of recommendations prepared by the V.D. Satheesan committee, new faces and youth should be given more representation in the candidates list. Mr. Satheesan said it was after much deliberations that the committee had called for discouraging the trend of spouses repeatedly being fielded from a ward. “There were complaints that the practice was spoiling the chances of young party workers. The recommendation was included as a guideline and not a hard and fast rule because we felt that it would create problems in places where candidates were not available.”
Meanwhile, the LDF camp has already smelt an opportunity in the differences that have cropped up in the Congress over the selection of candidate in the Thampanoor ward. The CPI has fielded Jayalakshmy as its nominee to take on Ms. Biju Harikumar.
