The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday announced its second list of 39 candidates for the Kerala Assembly elections scheduled for April 19.
Former BJP state president and former Mizoram governor, Kummanam Rajasekharan, will contest from the Aranmula constituency, while Nattika MLA C.C. Mukundan, who recently joined the saffron party, has been fielded from the same seat.
Mukundan had been expelled from the Communist Party of India (CPI) after declaring his intention to run as an independent candidate from the seat.
The candidates were finalised at a meeting of the BJP Central Election Committee on Wednesday, attended by party president Nitin Nabin, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, and Home Minister Amit Shah.
Notable names in the list include Bigg Boss star Robin Radhakrishnan, who will contest from Kundara, and senior party leader B. Gopalakrishnan from Guruvayoor. Renu Suresh has been fielded from Kongad, Deepa Puzhakkal from Tanur, Aswinini ML from Kasaragod, and Ashwathy Guptha Kumar and Pathmasree M. from Malappuram and Manjeri, respectively.
BJP had earlier released a list of 47 candidates, including party state chief Rajeev Chandrasekhar from Nemom and former Union minister V. Muraleedharan from Kazhakoottam.
The BJP is aiming to strengthen its presence in Kerala, a state ruled alternately by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) led by the CPI(M) and the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF). The saffron party made its first breakthrough in the state assembly in 2016 by winning the Nemom seat but lost it to the CPI(M) in the 2021 elections.