Amid a growing rift within the party over the candidature of Forest and Wildlife Minister AK Saseendran, the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) (NCP(SP)) Central Parliamentary Council on Monday announced candidates for the upcoming Kerala assembly elections.
According to the decision taken in consultation with the state unit of the party, Mr. Saseendran will be posted in Elathur, where MLA Thomas K. Thomas will sit in Kuttanad and KT Mujeeb in Malappuram.
This is the fourth consecutive term Mr. Saseendran is contesting from Elathur, from where Mr. Saseendran has been winning since 2011. Earlier, the Kozhikode NCP(SP) district committee had opposed Mr. Saseendran’s candidature and recommended Mukkam Mohammed as the party’s district secretary. A resolution in this direction was also adopted at the recently held meeting of the district election commission. However, the state leadership of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) was in favor of Mr. Saseendran’s candidature.
On Monday, the district convention held at the Kozhikode Town Hall again endorsed Mr. Muhammad’s name. Although Mr. Mohammed, also the district convener of the LDF, gave an impassioned and emotional speech criticizing the alleged efforts of certain people in the party to deny him a ticket citing his religious identity, the NCP (SP) national leadership chose to ignore it all. Earlier, most of the party’s “mandalam” committees supported Mr. Muhammad’s candidature.
Published – 16 March 2026 20:59 IST
