KK Shailaja, 64, is also known as "Shailaja Teacher".
Highlights
- KK Shailaja came to be seen as a "rockstar" health minister
- The former minister, 64, is also known as "Shailaja Teacher"
- She won by over 60,000 votes from the constituency in Kannur district
KK Shailaja, who was praised for her handling of the coronavirus outbreak as Kerala's Health Minister, will not be a part of the Left-led government's new cabinet. The LDF, which defied tradition and won a second straight term in recent elections, will have a new-look cabinet in which Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will be the only repeat.
"No one from the earlier LDF ministry is part of the new ministry except for the Chief Minister. This is our party decision. Only our party has the courage to do so. Many top performers were also not allowed to contest elections. We want new faces," AN Shamsheer, a CPM MLA, told NDTV.
Reports suggest those picked for the new cabinet are MV Govindan, K Radhakrishnan, KN Balagopal, P Rajeev, VN Vasavan, Saji Cherian, V Sivankutty, Mohd Riyas, Dr R Bindu, Veena George and V Abdul Rahman.
The decision may raise eyebrows when applied to one of the government's top performers in its last term.
KK Shailaja aka "Shailaja Teacher" came to be seen as a "rockstar" health minister for her handling of the Covid outbreak in Kerala, a state that scored early successes in checking the spread of the virus in the first wave. She had also been appreciated for her role in checking the Nipah virus.
In September, the UK-based Prospect magazine selected KK Shailaja as the "Top Thinker of the Year 2020".
In the Kerala election, she had won by a huge margin over 60,000 votes from Mattannur, her constituency and home town.
Speaking to NDTV on the day of her win, the 64-year-old CPM leader had told NDTV: "Whether I will be the health minister again is something that will be decided when a decision by the cabinet is taken. So I cannot be sure at the moment."
She added: "What I want to highlight is that we faced many challenges during our tenure. We had a devastating hurricane, floods, the Nipah virus, and COVID-19 pandemic but we rose to the occasion each time. The people saw this and were happy with the model of governance in Kerala and hence we have been voted to power again for the work we have done."
