KOCHI: The Congress party seems to have corrected itself by giving prominence to newcomers in the list of candidates for upcoming local body elections. Congress' Mayor Soumini Jain has been dropped from the list of 63 candidates for the Kochi Corporation. DCC president TJ Vinod has announced the list of candidates which includes names such as former GCDA chairman N Venugopal, Deepti Mary Varghese, KR Premkumar and PD Martin.

It must be noted that 48 out of the total 63 candidates are newcomers. It is alleged that the Youth Congress and KSU did not get the required prominence in the nomination process. 9 sitting councillors and 10 former councillors have also made it to the list.

The district leadership had taken the stand that giving a seat to Soumini Jain was not under consideration at the time of preparing the list of candidates. Soumini had also stated that she did not want to create a controversy over the seat issue. Meanwhile, the Congress has also released the names of 18 candidates contesting for the district panchayat.