New Delhi/Kottayam: The Republican Party of India (Athawale) (RPI), which is part of the ruling NDA coalition, has announced its candidate for the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat, against the sitting MP and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

The candidature of Nusrat Jahan, national vice-president of RPI (A), is the decision of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), said RPI (A) founder and union minister Ramdas Athawale. The NDA has given one seat to RPI in all the states, he claimed.

Nusrat, who hails from Kozhikode, functions from Delhi. The decision to field a Muslim woman to take on Rahul Gandhi is an example of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s women empowerment initiatives, she claimed.

The decision has not been ratified by the BJP state leadership. The RPI is not part of the NDA in Kerala and sources said it may field its own candidate.

Meanwhile, the NDA candidates for the Idukki and Kottayam seats are allotted to the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) and will be announced in next couple of days.

The BJP has urged Thushar Vellappally to contest from Kottayam, where the SNDP Yogam wields clout, but a decision on it is yet to be taken. If Thushar is the candidate, the BDJS wants the announcement to come from the national leadership in Delhi. But the BJP top brass insists that the party doesn’t have a precedence of announcing alliance partners’ candidates.