Deadlock continues in Congress over four seats

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A consensus formula to select the candidates in the remaining four seats is still eluding in Congress as the KPCC has decided to postpone the announcement of the final list to Monday.

Though seat sharing between the groups is the main reason behind the delay, the KPCC denies any such issues. “It is baseless that the group equations are delaying the announcement. We need to have more discussions and hence we have called Oommen Chandy to New Delhi. We will sit together and finalize the list,” said KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran.

There are reports that Wayanad seat is the main bottleneck as Chandy wants his trusted lieutenant T Siddique to be fielded here, which is not acceptable for the ‘I’ group as it is their sitting seat. The ‘I’ group nominee for Wayanad is K P Abdul Majeed. Since there is no consensus among the groups, A K Antony has suggested the name of Malappuram DCC president V V Prakash for the seat.

Adoor Prakash and Shanimol Usman are the front runners for Attingal and Alappuzha. Prakash is being considered in Alappuzha since he belongs to Ezhava community and the Congress feels that he has better chance here than Shanimol. However, Shanimol is not ready to contest from Attingal.

In Vadakara, the nominee of the KPCC chief is Vidya Balakrishnan but the leaders are pushing for a strong candidate against P Jayarajan. Ramesh Chennithala suggested Siddique’s name in Vadakara, but Chandy did not accept it. With Shanimol also pitching for Wayanad, the leaders are waiting for Chandy to reach Delhi to evolve a consensus.