Kerala Assembly polls: BJP announces second list of 39 candidates; Kummanam to contest from Aranmula
The Hindu
BJP announces second list of 39 Kerala Assembly candidates, including Kummanam from Aranmula and C.C. Mukundan from Nattika.
The Central Election Committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday (March 19, 2026) announced the second list of candidates for the Assembly elections to be held in Kerala on April 9. As per the list, which features candidates for 39 constituencies, senior leader Kummanam Rajasekharan will contest from Aranmula, while B. Gopalakrishnan, who had begun his preliminary poll campaign in Kodungallur, has now been fielded from Guruvayur.
Meanwhile, C.C. Mukundan, the ousted Communist Party of India (CPI) MLA who later joined the BJP ahead of the Kerala Assembly polls, will seek a mandate from Nattika. Vathsala Prasanna Kumar will contest from Paravur, where the Congress has fielded Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan.
With this, the BJP has so far announced a total of 86 candidates.
Notably, the second list features six women, taking the total number of women candidates to 13. Of these, seven were named in the first list, which was released two days ago. Among the notable names in the first list are Kerala BJP president Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who has been fielded from the Nemom constituency in Thiruvananthapuram; former Union Minister V. Muraleedharan from Kazhakuttam; and George Kurian from Kanjirappally.
The party is expected to announce another list of around 10 candidates in the coming days.
The full second list of candidates:
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