Bypoll for Kerala's Chengannur assembly seat on May 28

The by-election to Kerala's Chengannur assembly constituency will be held on May 28, it was announced on Thursday.

The announcement of the date for the keenly-awaited contest came almost a month after the three rival fronts announced their candidates.

The notification for the poll will be issued on May 3 with May 10 the last date for filing of nominations and May 14 the last date for withdrawal, Kerala Chief Electoral Officer Tika Ram Meena told reporters here. Counting will be held on May 31.

The bypoll was necessitated following the sudden demise of sitting legislator K.K. Ramachandran Nair, of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) in early January.

Chengannur constituency, in the Alappuzha district, had been, except in the May 2016 assembly elections, a Congress bastion for nearly three decades.

The CPI-M has fielded its Alappuzha district secretary Saji Cheriyan, Congress has nominated long time aspirant D.Vijayakumar, while the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate is its former state party chief P.S.Sreedharan Pillai, who in 2016 polls came a close third to the sitting Congress legislator P.C.Vishnunath, who lost to Nair.

Meena said the constituency's total electorate stands at 1,88,702 besides 228 NRI voters and 164 polling stations will be set up for the election. He also said that the code of conduct has come into force.

All the three candidates had started their campaigning last month itself, but their efforts lost steam when the date of the bypoll was not announced along with the Karnataka assembly election schedule.

"We have always been on the campaign as we knew if not today, tomorrow, it has to be announced, ... maybe the intensity was not there," said Vijayakumar.

Cheriyan, on his part, said: "We have already completed three rounds of campaign and the good thing is that the date of the poll is just before the monsoon starts."

"I have been here with my voters ever since I was named as the candidate and I have already been able to gel with them and now it's a matter of meeting each one again and pressing my case," said Pillai.

--IANS

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