VK Sreekandan: Congress Candidate From Palakkad Constituency (Photo on Facebook V. K Sreekandan)
Congress announced the anticipated name of VK Sreekandan, the incumbent MP, as its candidate from the Palakkad Lok Sabha constituency for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Born in 1970, Sreekandan started his political journey at the age of 12 when he became the unit president of the Kerala Student Union (KSU), the student wing of the Congress party, in the Government High School at Shoranur in 1983. Since then, he has been an active party worker and held several important portfolios.
In 2003, he was made the General Secretary of the Youth Congress All India Committee, and in 2006, he also served as the Secretary of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee. In 2016, he became the President of the Palakkad District Congress Committee. Sreekandan was given his first electoral ticket in the 2011 Palakkad assembly elections but was defeated by the CPM’s M Hamza by a majority of 13,203 votes.
However, in his Lok Sabha debut in 2019, Sreekandan, wrested the power from the three decades of CPM”s dominance, with a majority of 11,637. He was then credited with defeating the CPM strongman and two-term MP MB Rajesh in his electoral debut. The CPM has fielded the party veteran A. Vijayaraghavan and the BJP which has improved its vote share to 21 percent in 2019 from 15 percent in 2014, has fielded C. Krishnakumar. With this, there are talks regarding a tough triangular battle in the constituency.
Notably, the 53-year-old history graduate”s re-nomination was obvious even before the party officially released the candidate list as he had begun campaign- activities earlier. His ‘Jai Ho’ march through the constituency covering 88 Panchayats and eight municipalities on foot had become a discussion in the party circle.
He seemed to be committed towards retaining the traditional CMP fortress by creating a strong impact at the grassroots level. Walking around 362 km and attending around 100 public gatherings, he has caught the Congress national leadership”s attention, and the party has sought a detailed report regarding the ‘Jai Ho’ event.
Talking about his parliament performance, Sreekandan boasts 93 percent of attendance and participated in 63 debates. He has posed a total of 294 questions and has introduced nine bills across different parliament sessions.
