Thiruvananthapuram: Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections early this year, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) held their leadership meetings on Thursday. Out of the 20 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala in the 2014 polls, 12 were won by the UDF and 8 by the LDF.
The LDF decided to conduct a Kerala March aiming to bring down the Narendra Modi government. The march would cover all the 140 assembly constituencies in the state . It was decided that the front would organise two marches – one from the northern and one from the southern parts. It has been reported that CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan will lead the march from Thiruvananthapuram and CPI state secretary Kanam Rajendran will head the march from north and both will culminate at Thrissur on 2 March.
V S Achuthanandan, veteran communist, was absent in the LDF meet and sources said that he was unhappy with the inclusion of Pillai’s party
The alliance partners (Kerala Congress (M) and Kerala Congress (Jacob)) in the UDF demanded for more seats during the meet. KC(M) staked claim for the Idukki constituency, which has also been sought by the KC (Jacob) group.
The meet also decided not to consider the letter of Poonjar MLA and former Kerala Congress leader P C George expressing their wish to join the front. After the sitting member Jose K Mani was nominated to the Rajya Sabha, the Kottayam seat is now vacant.