I think good sense will prevail… What is the gain for Congress or Rahul Gandhi in contesting from Kerala: CPI Wayanad nominee

The Communist Party of India (CPI) on Monday announced Annie Raja as its candidate for the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat in Kerala, currently held byCongress MP Rahul Gandhi. Annie, who will contest her first ever election this year, is a member of the CPI’s national executive and the wife of party general secretary D Raja. She is also the general secretary of the National Federation of Indian Women and has been involved in politics since her school days.

Though theCPI is a member of the Opposition INDIA bloc with the Congress, which had won the Wayanad seat with a record margin of 4.3 lakh votes in the 2019 elections, the Left party has publicly asked Rahul to contest the upcoming polls from another seat.

In an interview withThe Indian Express, she speaks about her poll debut and the prospect of contesting against an ally in the Congress. Excerpts:

The party has given me many organisational responsibilities in the last 40-45 years. I have also been working among women, mobilising them and taking up their issues. Now the party has given me a new responsibility.

In Kerala, it has been Left Democratic Front (LDF) versus the United Democratic Front (UDF) for several years now. In 2019 also, the CPI had contested the Wayanad seat. In the LDF alliance, the CPI has been given four seats and Wayanad is one of them. The other seats are Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur and Mavelikkara. The CPI had contested all these seats last time also. In Kerala, it is LDF versus UDF, and there is no INDIA alliance in the state.

When INDIA alliance parties … had meetings … that time itself they had made their stand very clear that … Left and secular, democratic parties should come together. Even at that time Kerala was made an exception.

I think good sense