CPI Announces Four Candidates For Lok Sabha Elections; Rahul Gandhi's Wayanad, Shashi Tharoor's Thiruvananthapuram Taken

Communist Party of India (CPI) on Monday (26 February) announced four candidates in Kerala for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The most notable of them is the candidature of Annie Raja from Wayanad.

Currently, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is the Lok Sabha MP from Wayanad. However, since CPI is now part of the Congress-led INDI Alliance, Gandhi will not get a chance to contest from here again.

Earlier, it was reported that CPI has been allocated four of the 20 seats from Kerala under the seat-sharing arrangement. Then, CPI General Secretary D Raja did not reject the possibility of Wayanad being one of them.

Annie Raja is D Raja's wife and the national mahila samakhya general secretary of CPI. She said that CPI has been contesting these four seats under the LDF alliance and there is nothing new in it.

The other three declared CPI candidates are Pannian Raveendran from Thiruvananthapuram, VS Sunil Kumar from Thrissur and Arun Kumar from Mavelikara. Currently, these three seats also have a Congress MP.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has been representing Thiruvananthapuram since 2009, while TN Prathapan and Kodikunnil Suresh are MPs from Thrissur and Mavelikkara respectively.

Responding to the development, Rajya Sabha MP and CPI (M) Secretary Binoy Viswam said that there was no political logic for the Congress to come to Kerala as the fight with the BJP is in north India.