Kerala Election: Lathika Subhash To Contest Independently After Congress Ticket Snub

Kerala Election Lathika Subhash candidature: Former Mahila Congress Kerala State President Lathika Subhash has announced she will contest the Kerala assembly election 2021 independently after being denied a party ticket by Indian National Congress.

She has said she will contest from the Ettumanoor constituency, Kottayam under the symbol of an autorickshaw. "I am not going to any other party for the upcoming Assembly election," she told news agency ANI. "Women are saying they will vote for me because I raised my voice for the cause of women. So, I am confident they will give me their votes."

This comes over a week after Subhash got her head tonsured in protest of the underrepresentation of women on the Congress candidate list and resigned from her post as the Congress women's wing president on March 14.

"Even if the leadership doesn’t decide to give 20 percent representation to women, at least one woman from all the 14 districts should have been included," she had said. As opposed to her hopes of representation, the Congress list featured 10 women out of total 92 candidates.

In Kerala Election Lathika Subhash To Contest Independently

Mullappally Ramachandran, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC), on Subhash missing from the list, had said, "We could not give her seat this time... but it was not intentional... We will surely accommodate her in future."

As an independent candidate for Ettumanoor, the 56-year-old is confident she will win since she feels her snub by Congress "symbolises crushing of women by parties." Talking to Indian Express, she says, "I will win, no doubt. They (male party leaders) think a woman can only climb up to district panchayat president."

Earlier this week, another senior Congress leader KC Rosakutty also resigned from her post as the vice president of KPCC citing the party's ignorance towards women. “I am fed up with the faction wars in the party and hence decided to resign. The Congress party has been continuously ignoring women in the party,” she said.

Kerala polls begin April 6 and close on May 2.