For the first time in recent times, Kozhikode district will get three ministers in the State Cabinet.
For P.A. Mohammed Riyas of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] and Ahammad Devarkovil of the Indian National League (INL), it will be their maiden innings while for Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader A.K. Saseendran, it will be his second term.
The name of Mr. Riyas, the national president of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), was doing the rounds ever since the CPI(M) State secretariat meeting a fortnight ago decided on including new faces in the Cabinet. Mr. Riyas recorded an impressive victory from the Beypore Assembly segment, polling 28,747 votes more than Congress candidate P.M. Niyas.
However, the dark horse in the Cabinet induction was Mr. Devarkovil, who won from Kozhikode South, defeating Noorbina Rasheed of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) by 12,459 votes. He will share the five-year term with Congress (S) legislator Kadanappally Ramachandran under the Cabinet berth-sharing pact worked out by the Left Democratic Front.
Mr. Saseendran, who returns to the Cabinet, will share the term with his party colleague, Thomas K. Thomas, who won the Kuttanad seat. Mr. Saseendran won from Elathur with a huge mandate for the third time in a row.
Though the district gets three ministers, all of them are from the urban sector in Kozhikode. In the previous Cabinet, senior CPI(M) leader T.P. Ramakrishnan, who represented the district, was from the rural belt of Perambra. This time he was dropped from the Cabinet and made parliamentary party secretary.
