THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A day after Lathika Subhash quit her party posts in protest against denying seat, the high command has directed to give a chance to at least one woman in one of the seats to be announced again. With this, it is believed that a woman candidate will be fielded in Vattiyoorkavu. Jyothi Vijayakumar familiar to Keralites as the translator of Rahul Gandhi’s speeches during his visits to the state, is likely to be fielded in Vattiyoorkavu. Although Veena S Nair was considered here first, there are indications that Jyothi will be fielded by the party.

The high command is in great anger after the outbursts that broke out soon after the candidates were announced. The AICC was of the belief that the list with 55% of new faces will benefit the party. That is why KPCC chief Mullappally Ramachandran was given a chance to announce the list instead of the usual AICC’s announcement. The protests including that of Lathika Subhash is said to have battered the gains that could have been made with the list. Sonia Gandhi is annoyed at the low representation of women. The state leadership hopes that this can be cooled down by bringing Jyothi Vijayakumar.

If Jyothi is fielded in Vattiyoorkavu, Kundara will be given to P C Vishnunath. Meantime, the question on how to overcome the local opposition in Vattiyoorkavu remains before the Congress leadership. Shobha Surendran has started preparations to contest in Kazhakoottam after the uncertainty.

Shobha, who was in a tug of war with the state BJP leadership, is coming to the fore following the strong intervention of the central leadership. She said the fight against devaswom minister will be a contest for all devotees of Sabarimala.

Despite being initially excluded from the fight, Shobha's unexpected entry to A plus constituency of Kazhakoottam has trapped the official faction. She will be raising the Sabarimala issue during her campaign. The national leadership intervened ignoring Surendran’s statement. They found that if she had been avoided and if given an unimportant constituency, it would have badly affected the image of the party.

List of disputed constituencies
The activists are hoping that the list of disputed constituencies in the Congress extending like Ganpathy's wedding, will be released at least today. Despite the protests, the present move is to field social activist Feroz Kunnamparambil in Thavanur.

DCC president V V Prakash will be the Congress candidate in Nilambur. Though there were indications that Aryadan Shaukath would contest from Pattambi constituency, he asserted that he did not want to contest anywhere after leaving Malappuram. It should be seen whether Aryadan Shaukath will be made DCC president when V V Prakash contests. The Congress had considered Aryadan Shaukath and V V Prakash as candidates in 2016. In the end, V V Prakash gave up and Aryadan contested. This time things would be different.