Thiruvananthapuram:
Ending the suspense over whether Kerala's octogenarian chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan would be contesting the April 13 assembly elections, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) announced on March 18 he would be fielded from the Malampuzha constituency he represents in the outgoing house.
This follows widespread protests after reports that Achuthanandan was being denied a ticket.
"V.S. Achuthanandan will obviously be the team leader. He has always been part of the decision making process in our party... don't try to separate him," Pinnarayi Vijayan, CPI-M state secretary, said while announcing the list of candidates for the forthcoming polls.
"Why do you have any doubts? Is it not very obvious that Achuthanandan would lead the election campaign," Vijayan asked while speaking to reporters.
"In our party, there is a process through which candidate selection is done. And no one ever said that he is not going to contest. In fact, Achuthanandan has also been part of the decision making process," Vijayan added.
As news spread of Achuthanandan's candidature, his supporters took out a victory procession that passed in front of the CPI-M state headquarters.
The decision to drop the 87-year-old chief minister from the list of candidates was taken at a marathon four-hour meeting of the CPI-M's 15-member state secretariat Wednesday and was endorsed by the 81-member state committee late in the evening, party sources had said.
The controversial decision led to protests across the state.
In 2006 as well, Achuthanandan was denied a party ticket but following a huge public outcry, the national leadership had to reverse its decision. He led the Left Front's poll campaign and went on to become the chief minister.
Following a media campaign run by the various TV channels here about the widespread protests against Achuthanandan being denied a seat, the CPI-M's national leadership went into a huddle in New Delhi Thursday night and again met Friday morning when it was decided that the chief minister would contest.
The decision was conveyed to the Kerala state secretariat of the party when it met here Friday morning.
The opposition Congress and its leader Oommen Chandy dismissed the episode as political drama.
"Did not the same thing happen in 2006 and it has been repeated again. It is immaterial to us if he contests or not, we are going to return to power for certain. All things in their party are their problem and we have nothing to do in that and it is not concerning us also," said Chandy.
Achuthanandan had stayed put at his official residence ever since he left the party headquarters late Wednesday night. When the list of candidates was announced, he said he would abide by the party's decision.
CPI state secretary C.K. Chandrappan expressed happiness on hearing that Achuthanandan would be contesting.
"This is welcome news for all of us that Achuthanandan is contesting," said Chandrappan.