Thiruvananthapuram/Kannur: In a sudden turn of events, C Raghunath, the general secretary of the Kannur District Congress Committee, filed his nomination for contesting from the Dharmadom Legislative Assembly constituency against Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
According to Manorama News, Raghunath filed his nomination papers on Thursday afternoon after senior Congress leader and KPCC working president K Sudhakaran refused to take up the challenge citing his busy schedule ahead of the assembly polls to be held early next month.
Reportedly, it was K Sudhakaran who proposed the name of Raghunath for Dharmadon in the talks with the state leadership of the party.
He filed the nomination even before the official announcement by Congress High Command.
Earlier, Congress leadership contacted Sudhakaran and ascertained his interest in challenging Pinarayi Vijayan in the northern constituency.
Though he welcomed the suggestion of the KPCC and AICC leadership, Sudhakaran refused to accept the proposal saying his candidature would be detrimental to achieve the UDF goal of bagging five assembly seats in Kannur district as he would be bogged down in Dharmadom if he were to contest.
Later, KPCC president Mullapally Ramachandran, who too wanted Sudhakaran in the fray, had said that the decision on Dharmadom would be announced by the Congress High Command in Delhi.
However, Raghunath filed his nomination paper even before the official announcement.
The other major contestant here is the BJP candidate CK Padmanabhan. He had led the party in Kerala from 1998 to 2003.
In the 2016 Kerala Assembly election, Pinarayi had won from Dharmadom with a 37,000-vote margin over the second-placed contender, Congress' Mambaram Divakaran.
