AAP appoints state election committee for Kerala local body polls

 The Aam Aadmi Party on Wednesday appointed a six-member state election committee for the Kerala local body polls to be held next month for which candidates will be identified through a selection process on a digital forum.

P C Cyriac, a veteran bureaucrat and former Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu, has been made the coordinator of the state election committee of the AAP in Kerala, MLA and party's Kerala in-charge Somnath Bharti said.

Vincent Philip – an educationist and entrepreneur, Thufail P T  – who served as the secretary and convenor of the state unit of AAP, Binoy Pullathil – a lawyer turned activist,  Padmanabhan Bhaskaran – a social entrepreneur and IT consultant, and  V Ummar – an RTI activist, are the other members of the committee.

“The committee is mandated to identify the candidates for the local body elections through an open and fair process, plan and execute the election campaign and manage other logistics required,” Bharti told reporters.

Bharti also invited social workers with a clean image, teachers, entrepreneurs, retired government servants, farmers, traders, researchers, artists, advocates, IT experts, and professionals to join the AAP in Kerala.The candidates for the local polls shall be identified through an open and fair selection process, he said.

A digital form is available on the official Facebook page of the Aam Aadmi Party - Kerala and the website HYPERLINK http://kerala.aamaadmiparty.org"kerala.aamaadmiparty.org.

The same shall be shared on all digital and social media platforms. Interested candidates can apply from Wednesday (November 11, 2020) afternoon onwards till November 16, he said.

The details of the applicants will be scrutinized thoroughly and the selected names will be announced. It is the first of its kind exercise in the 64 years political history of Kerala, he added.

The local body polls in Kerala will be held in three phases from December 8. While the first phase on December 8 will be held in five districts of Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathnamthitta, Alappuzha and Idukki, the second will be on December 10 at Kottayam, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad and Wayanad.

The third phase on December 14 will be in the remaining four districts of Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kannur and Kasaragod. The counting of votes will take place on December 16.