Uncertainty over the candidature of Congress president Rahul Gandhi in the Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency continued on Sunday.
KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran, who had earlier planned to hold a press conference in Kozhikode in the morning, cancelled it at the last minute. It was left to Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala to address the media later in the State capital and repeat the Congress State unit’s request to the party president to contest from Wayanad.
Meanwhile, candidates for Vadakara and Wayanad constituencies were missing from the latest list released by the All India Congress Committee. K. Muraleedharan, who has already started his campaign in Vadakara, however, claimed that there was no uncertainty about his candidature from the seat. He told the media at Vadakara that he had started campaigning after getting a green signal from the central leadership.
At the same time, the Samastha Kerala Jamiyyathul Ulama, a forum of Sunni clerics, alleged that the Congress had failed to ensure “proper representation for Muslims” in Parliament.
While welcoming the proposal to field Mr. Gandhi from Wayanad, Umar Faizi Mukkom, a senior Samastha leader, told a news channel that the Congress should provide a “winnable seat” for Kozhikode District Congress committee president T. Siddique, who was earlier nominated for the seat.
The Samastha leader said that Mr. Siddique’s withdrawal from the race from a “sure seat” would reduce the Muslim representation in the Lok Sabha and the Congress was far behind as a secular party in ensuring it.
