Possible Kerala candidates for LS polls
Thiruvananthapuram: With only a few months left for the Lok Sabha elections, there are speculation that many political bigwigs may contest from the coastal state. Here is a list of candidates of various political parties who are likely to contest Lok Sabha election from Kerala.
Rumours are rife that Prime Minister Narendra Modi may contest from Thrissur constituency seat while other BJP senior leaders Nirmala Sitharaman, S. Jaisankar, V. Muraleedharan and Rajiv Chandrasekhar may also contest from Kerala.
For Lok Sabha 2024, the CPI-M-led Left is considering giving tickets to the following members: two-time former Finance Minister Thomas Isaac; A.K. Balan; P.K. Sreemathi; K.K. Shailaja; Kadakampally Surendran; K. Radhakrishnan; and Raju Abraham.
Reportedly, the Congress has finalised the names of at least 13 constituency seats, who are all sitting MPs.
Congress is yet to finalise the names of the candidate for Kannur constituency and Alappuzha, which they lost in 2019.
There are also rumours that CPI may field former Chief Secretary K. Jayakumar from Thiruvananthapuram constituency. However, the seat is currently held by Shashi Tharoor, who aims for a fourth straight win.
From Thrissur, the CPI is considering fielding two former state ministers K.P. Rajendran and V.S. Sunil Kumar.
The coastal state has 20 Lok Sabha seats. In the 2019 general election, the Congress led UDF won 19 seats while CPI-M won one seat.
The BJP came second in the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat and was relegated to a distant third in the rest of the seats across the state.
In 2019, in the Congress-led UDF, Congress had fielded its candidates on 15 seats, the IUML had fielded four candidates and RSP had fielded one candidate. Likewise, from CPI-M-led Left, the CPI-M had fielded candidates on 15 seats, and CPI had fielded candidates on four seats while the Kerala Congress (M) had fielded only one candidate.