Thiruvananthapuram, March 15 (IANS): The Kannur Lok Sabha seat in Kerala will witness a tough battle as Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan seeks to wrest his home turf from the Congress.

The Lok Sabha seat is in Kannur district from where a big number of CPI(M) workers and a galaxy of present day veteran party leaders also hail.

Another reason is the CPI(M) does not want the seat to be retained by rival and sitting member K. Sudhakaran, who is also the state Congress party president.

Sudhakaran, 75, who was not keen to contest due to health issues, was asked by the party high command to defend his seat. To stop him the CPI(M) has brought in its top leader, who is a former legislator and the Kannur district secretary of the party, M.V. Jayarajan.

Jayarajan is considered to be a close aide of CM Vijayan and was handpicked by the latter. The political rivalry between CM Vijayan and Sudhakaran dates back to several decades.

Sudhakaran, while being a legislator, was asked to contest the 2009 Lok Sabha polls which he won by a margin of over 40,000 votes, but in 2014 he lost the seat by a slender margin to CPI(M)’s former Health Minister P.K. Sreemathi.

In 2019 Sudhakaran wrested the seat from Sreemathi with a margin of 90,000 votes.

The BJP in this constituency has in the past always finished a distant third and in the 2019 polls their candidate managed just 68,509 votes.

This time the BJP is hopeful that they will be able to increase their votes as they have brought in former Congress leader C. Reghunath, who recently joined the BJP.

The CPI(M) is hopeful that with five out of the seven Assembly seats in their kitty, they will be able to prevent Sudhakaran from winning. The Congress, on the other hand, is confident of retaining the prestigious seat.