Thiruvananthapuram: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday announced its first list of 47 candidates for the Kerala assembly elections, in which Union minister George Kurian will contest from Kanjirappally, the party’s state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar will contest from the Nemom seat and former Union minister V Muraleedharan Kazhakkoottam’s authorization will be sought again. Former state president of the party K Surendran will contest from Manjeswar, a seat he lost narrowly in 2021. Former DGP and Sasthamangalam Corporation constituency councilor R Sreelekha has contested from Vattiyoorkavu, while BJP state vice-president C Krishnakumar will contest from Malampuzha. Sobha Surendran won the Palakkad seat, while former Mahila Congress general secretary R Reshmi, who switched to the BJP last month, will contest from Kottarakkara. The Central Election Committee of the BJP, chaired by party president Nitin Nabin, finalized the candidates for the 47 seats at a meeting that was also attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Minister Amit Shah. Other candidates listed in the first list include AP Gangadharan (Payyannur), C Raghunath (Kannur), Kavitha AS (Sultan Bathery – ST), Navya Haridas (Kozhikode North), T Raneesh (Kozhikode South), Padmaja Venugopal (Thrissur), A Ajith (Vaikom – SC), BB Gopakumar (Chathannur), P Sudheer (Attingal), Yuvaraj Gokul (Nedumangad).
