Congress Kerala unit chief calls party leader ‘a nobody’ over candidates’ list

Congress Kerala unit president K Sudhakaran called the party’s national spokesperson Shama Mohamed “a nobody” after she questioned the party’s Lok Sabha election 2024 candidates list for the state. While dismissing her objections to the Kerala candidates’ list of 16 candidates which saw the party fielding just one woman for Lok Sabha election 2024 – Ramya Haridas from Alathur seat in Palakkad district, Sudhakaran stated,”Go and ask her. She is a nobody in the party.”

Shama Mohamed had earlier on Sunday voiced her concerns at the Congress’s list which showed Ramya Haridas as the lone woman candidate from Kerala. She stressed that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who represents Kerala’s Wayanad in the Lok Sabha, has been a strong advocate of more women represenation in the legislative bodies and Kerela leaders should take heed of his ideas.

“You should give representation to women. In 2019, there were two women candidates. But after passing of the Women Reservation Bill, there is only one this time. That is my greatest disappointment,” she had said.

Her comments come just days after Padmaja Venugopal, the daughter of former Kerala chief minister K. Karunakaran and longtime member of the Congress, defected to the BJP alleging that the party and its leaders had neglected her.

The national spokesperson for the AICC asserted that she was not lodging a complaint, but rather urging the party to provide women with greater representation. She further stated that the party had to field more female candidates in order to regain the votes that women were defectinging to other parties.

There are three women on the BJP’s first list of 12 Kerala candidates, and there are two women on the LDF’s full list of 20 nominees.