Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) [India], March 17 (ANI): Congress on Tuesday announced its list of 55 candidates for the upcoming Kerala Assembly elections.

The party has fielded Kerala Congress Committee President Sunny Joseph from the Peravoor seat. Leader of Opposition VD Satheesan has been fielded from the Paravur seat.

K Muraleedharan, former MP and son of veteran Congress leader and former Chief Minister of Kerala and former Union Minister of Industry K. Karunakaran from the Vattiyoorkavu seat.

Earlier, the party's Central Election Committee convened to finalise the candidate list for the Kerala polls. Speaking on the occasion, Congress MP KC Venugopal emphasised that 'the party's Central Election Committee has cleared many names today for the major chunk of the seats. Winnability is a major criterion for selecting candidates.'

This comes after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday released the first list of candidates for the upcoming Kerala state polls. The party has fielded BJP Kerala President Rajeev Chandrasekhar from Nemom seat and former Union Minister of State for External Affairs of India, V Muraleedharan, from Kazhakoottam seat.

The 2026 Kerala Legislative Assembly elections will be held in a single phase on April 9, the Election Commission of India announced on Sunday, with the counting of votes scheduled to take place on May 4.

The Model Code of Conduct comes into place, setting in process elections to the 140-member State Assembly, which is also known as the Kerala Niyamasabha.

The tenure of the current assembly is scheduled to end on May 23, 2026.

Addressing a press conference in the national capital, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said in a press conference said, 'Voting will be held across 2.19 lakh polling stations in four states and one UT, with 25 lakh election officials on duty.'

CEC Kumar said that around 2.7 crore electors are expected to participate in the elections in Kerala. The last date for filing nominations is March 23, with scrutiny of nominations on March 24 and the last date for withdrawal of candidatures on March 26.

Following the completion ennumeration excercise of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the state electoral roll, the ECI released Kerala's final voter list on February 21. (ANI)