New Delhi: With a few surprises, the list of Congress candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections is likely to be announced on Friday. Leaders of the party from Kerala informed that its candidates for  the 16 parliamentary constituencies in the state have been chosen and their names will be announced after getting the nod  from the AICC.

While KC Venugopal will contest from Alappuzha, K Muraleedharan will move  from Vadakara to Thrissur. Sitting MP TN Prathapan will not be contesting in the elections. In a surprise move, Shafi Paramabil will fight the polls for Congress in Vadakara. Despite reluctance to contest, K Sudhakaran is finally known to have said yes to the repeated demands of his fellow partymen to contest against CPM’s MV Jayarajan from Kannur. Rahul Gandhi is poised to represent Wayanad in the Lok Sabha yet again.

And ofcourse, the above proposed list shall receive the final nod of Rahul Gandhi.

The list was prepared in a meeting held at the AICC headquarters on Thursday night. Those  in attendance included Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi, VD Satheesan and Shashi Tharoor.

The proposed list for Kerala     

Thiruvananthapuram: Shashi Tharoor, Attingal: Adoor Prakash , Alappuzha: KC Venugopal, Mavelikara: Kodikunnil Suresh, Idukki: Dean Kuriakose, Pathanamthitta: Anto Antony, Ernakulam: Hibi Eden, Chalakudy: Benny Behanan, Alathur: Ramya Haridas, Palakkad: VK Sreekandan, Thrissur: K Muraleedharan, Kozhikode: MK Raghavan, Wayanad: Rahul Gandhi, Vadakara: Shafi Parambil, Kannur: K Sudhakaran, Kasaragod: Rajmohan Unnithan

Other UDF candidates in fray 

Kollam: NK Premachandran (RSP), Kottayam: Francis George (Kerala Congress), Malappuram: ET Mohammed , Basheer (Muslim League), Ponnani: Abdussamad Samadani (Muslim League).