Party veteran E T Muhammed Basheer will contest from Malappuram, while another sitting Lok Sabha MP Abdul Samad Samadani will try his luck from Ponnani, said party supremo Panakkad Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal.
Thangal also said that the party would field its sitting MP K Navas Kani in Ramanathapuram, Tamil Nadu. Interestingly, Basheer, the current MP from Ponnani, will now run for Malappuram, while Samadani, who represents Malappuram in the Lok Sabha, will compete for the Ponnani seat in the upcoming elections.
Malappuram and Ponnani are Muslim-dominatedIUML constituencies in the northern part of Kerala. The candidates in Kerala were finalised after discussions held at the party’s higher council and with Congress and UDF leaders, Thangal said.
“IUML has been actively participating in national and parliamentary politics for a long time. This time, we are contesting three Lok Sabha seats – two in Kerala and one in Tamil Nadu,” he said.
The IUML supremo said that the party was contesting in Kerala as part of the Congress-led UDF and as a DMK ally in Tamil Nadu.
Thangal said that the IUML was upholding the politics of friendship, secularism, and democracy at the national level against fascism and hatred. He also mentioned that the party’s candidate for the Rajya Sabha seat would be announced later.
The Congress state leadership has promised to allot a Rajya Sabha seat to IUML as the latter had asked for a extra Lok Sabha seat this time. Meanwhile, Basheer and Samadani exuded confidence about their victory and stated that the exchange of seats would not impact their winning prospects.
