Kerala Assembly polls: BJP fields Adv Smitha from Varkala seat

Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) [India], March 22 (ANI): Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded Adv S Smitha, formerly a CPM area committee member, from the Varkala seat in the Kerala Assembly elections.
Smitha resigned from the CPM before joining the BJP, which took over the Varkala constituency from BDJS.
The 2026 Kerala Legislative Assembly elections will be held in a single phase on April 9, the Election Commission of India announced on March 15, with the counting of votes scheduled to take place on May 4.
The tenure of the current assembly is scheduled to end on May 23.
The Model Code of Conduct comes into place, setting in process elections to the 140-member State Assembly, which is also known as the Kerala Niyamasabha.
Both the BJP-led NDA and Congress-led UDF seek to unseat the incumbent Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led LDF and gain control of the 140-member assembly. The LDF-led government has governed the state for around a decade.
A day earlier, the BJP declared 11 more candidates for the assembly elections in Kerala.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has named V Ratheesh for Peerumade, Raveendranath Bakathanam for Puthuppally, Ajimon for Mavelikkara, Pandalam Prathapan for Adoor, KR Rajesh for Chavara, RS Arjun Raj for Chadayanmangalam, BS Anoop for Chirayinkeezhu, Karamana Jayan for Thiruvananthapuram, Vivek Gopan for Aruvikkara, TN Suresh for Kovalam, and S Rajasekharan Nair for Neyyanttinkara assembly constituency.
In the second list of 39 candidates for the assembly elections in Kerala. BJP has fielded K Ranjith from Dharmadam against Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
Former Mizoram Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan has been fielded from Aranmula. BJP has fielded Ashwini ML from Kasaragod, PR Sivasankar from Ernakulam, Vathsala Prasanna Kumar from Paravur, and Renu Suresh from Kongad.
BJP had released its first list of 47 candidates on March 19, fielding the party's state President Rajeev Chandrasekhar from Nemom seat and former Union Minister of State for External Affairs of India, V Muraleedharan, from Kazhakoottam seat. (ANI)