The confusion regarding the UDF candidate in Dharmadam constituency is finally over, with Congress handing over the symbol to DCC secretary C Raghunath, on Friday.
Mr. Raghunath had filed his nomination on Thursday soon after Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee Working president K Sudhakaran had declined to contest in the constituency, despite the KPCC and the Congress high command requesting him to contest here.
However, there was uncertainty after KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran responded that he did not know what Mr. Raghunath had filed and that the party is yet to announce its candidate. However, Mr. Raghunath confirmed that the nomination papers were submitted after getting the nod from the party.
Mr. Raghunath had said that the KPCC had collected his details to allow the symbol and he was ready to withdraw his candidature if the party demanded it.
Two days after the Kerala Congress (M) faction led by senior leader PJ Joseph and former Union Minister PC Thomas’ Kerala Congress decided to merge into a single entity ‘Kerala Congress’, the former and his colleague Mons Joseph, both sitting UDF legislators, on Friday resigned ahead of the forthcoming polls.
The resignation comes at a time when both of them agreed to contest the April 6 Assembly elections. Besides, the legal advice that they had received was that in order to avoid any future complications, it would be better if they quit and submit their nominations.
However, Joseph told the media that their decision to resign was done to ensure more transparency.
It was on Wednesday when Thomas who was willing to return to the Congress-led UDF through the party spearheaded by Joseph, decided that it was mutually beneficial for both of them to come under the name of the Kerala Congress party, which was formed by his father PT Chacko in the mid 60s.
Thomas’ party — Kerala Congress — last month had returned to be a part of the BJP-led NDA and was also seen among the leaders ahead of the state-wide yatra helmed by state BJP chief K Surendran.
But, Thomas had rather decided to opt out of the NDA.
The reason behind Joseph’s decision to take Thomas along with him was because despite repeated legal efforts to get the ‘two leaves’ symbol, which has been allotted to the faction of the Kerala Congress (M) led by Jose K. Mani, whose party is now an ally of the CPI-M led Left Democratic Front, Joseph was left stranded, after various courts ruled in favour of Jose K. Mani, who was given the ‘two leaves’ symbol.
Thomas represented the Muvattupuzha Lok Sabha constituency between 1989 and 2009.
In 2003, he became Union Minister of State for Law in the Vajpayee cabinet and in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls he won as an NDA candidate from his home turf.
But after 2009, he has been moving from one political front to the other, and finally he is all set to return to his original fold and thereby he will now be a UDF leader.
Now, the question remains whether the two leaders will get a proper symbol for them to contest for the polls, who were allotted 10 seats by the Congress-led UDF.
KOCHI: The dissent in United Democratic Front over official candidates saw no let-up on Monday also. If it was the ‘A’ group in Congress protesting against official candidate Sajeev Joseph in Irikkur, Kannur on Sunday, Congress activists in Elathur, Kozhikode on Monday protested against handing over the seat to Mani C Kappan’s Nationalist Congress Kerala (NCK). The local Congress brass has also threatened to field a rebel in the constituency. “We are not against giving a seat to an alliance partner. The issue is two Janata Dal members who contested for UDF from here are now LDF members. Also, NCK has no activists here,” a Congress member said. A section of Congress workers, meanwhile, staged a protest at Thrissur DCC office against the selection of Sunil Anthikkad as the party candidate in Pudukkad. Local workers are seeking a candidate from Pudukkad itself. In Kalamassery, the IUML local brass has opposed the candidature of V E Abdul Gafoor, son of MLA V K Ebrahim Kunju. The party had finalised Gafoor’s candidature after the local brass demanded dropping Kunju over the Palarivattom flyover case.
