Thiruvananthapuram: Jailed MLA to contest in KU polls

Thiruvananthapuram:The Congress party’s Kovalm MLA M. Vincent, who had been imprisoned in a sexual harassment case, and Aruvik-ara MLA K. S. Sabari-nadhan will contest the election to the Kerala University syndicate to be held by the end of January.

As per the notification released by the university, there are six seats for which two MLAs from the Opposition and four from the LDF will be elected. All the 140 elected MLAs and the nominated member have the right to cast their postal votes.

An MLA belonging to the SC category, who does not require votes, will be automatically elected.

MLAs belonging to Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam and Alappuzha can contest the syndicate elections. K. Muralee-dharan, V. S. Sivakumar, K. S. Sabarinadhan and M. Vincent from Thiru-vananthapuram and Op-position Leader Ramesh Chennithala from Alapp-uzha can cast their postal votes. There is no Cong-ress MLA to represent Kollam district.

Syndicate elections are held on the basis of proportional representation. One of the candidates out of the six (excluding the SC candidate) will be eliminated by drawing of lots.

R. S. Sasikumar, former syndicate member of the Congress, told DC that drawing of lots was being done for the first time in recent history due to the reservation for the SC MLA.

In future, the reservation candidate should undergo a separate election. All the six MLAs who get 20 votes each would be elected, he said.