Kerala   

Congress likely to field fresh candidates in polls

Girish Menon

Thiruvananthapuram : A new movement seeking to induct new faces in the coming Assembly elections has taken shape in the Congress in Kerala, even as the party leadership continues to search for a formula to improve its fortunes after a series of electoral setbacks.

The induction of fresh faces in the Assembly elections is become more a necessity for the Congress, in the context of its failure to arrive at a politically clinching formulation that might see it through without further damage, if not return it to power. The party leadership, and the Government it heads, have, by now, announced a series of measures, which, in electoral parlance, could be interpreted as populist.

However, a section in the Congress feels that these will not alone be sufficient to regain confidence of the people. If one were to look at the current incumbents in the Assembly, more than 25 have completed three terms.

According to the promoters of the new movement, many of them had got the ticket as part of the factional formulations in existence at that time. Some of these MLAs are faced with anti-incumbency factor in their respective constituencies.

Perhaps, the party cannot shift a few of the MLAs on ground of retaining the communal equations, but there is a strong feeling among party men that the formula for distribution of the ticket needs to be reworked.

This issue had figured in the KPCC executive meeting held earlier this month, with the senior leader V.M. Sudheeran, who has been ploughing a lonely furrow in relation to several controversial issues, making it plain that the party would have to induct new faces to overcome its current plight. This apparently has set the ball rolling.

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