Kannur: Congress leader Mambaram Divakaran will be taking on CPM politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan in Dharmadom assembly constituency in the upcoming election.
Former Kannur municipal chairperson M C Sreeja was earlier tipped to contest against Vijayan.
Besides the "strategic" change of candidate at Dharmadom, there was a more to replace K C Joseph with KPCC secretary Satheesan Pacheni at Irikkoor.
It was learnt that KPCC president V M Sudheeran batted for Pacheni, who would now contest from Kannur.
Joseph's closeness with chief minister Oommen Chandy and his clean image played to his advantage. The party felt that the public sentiment-barring a section of Congress workers-at Irikkoor, too, was in his favour.
The sitting MLA of Kannur, A P Abdullakutty, has been shifted to Thalassery, where he would lock horns with CPM's A N Shamseer.
The Congress leadership felt that Abdullakuttty would be a strong candidate in the 'red fort', which had elected Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, currently the CPM state secretary. Balakrishnan had won the 2011 polls with a margin of 26,509 votes. The Congress and the UDF were of the view that with BJP taking the electoral battle seriously in Thalassery by fielding its state secretary K Sajeevan, Abdullakutty, a former CPM leader, would be the apt candidate.
The dampener for the Congress, however, would be the schism within the party's district unit. The A-I rivalry had affected the party's prospects in the local body polls.
According to DCC secretary K Surendran, 'issues' that had earlier affected the party have been solved and the party was now battle ready.
"There are some strategic changes in the candidate list," he said.
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