Kerala: CPM shocked before assembly elections, 92 members joined BJP
Shweta Singh "Journalist" 
At least 92 members of the CPM joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday in the presence of Union ministers Prahlad Joshi and V. Muralitharan. Muralitharan is the lone member of Kerala in the Union Cabinet. Among those who joined BJP include former Kovalam Panchayat president and local leader M. Prabhakaran and five women. Membership was handed over to these new members by Joshi who was present in the state capital to inaugurate the election campaign office of the state BJP. All of them are members of Panavila and Nellikunu local committees in Kovalam assembly constituency.
Mani C Kappen, the expelled MLA of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Kerala on Monday, announced the formation of a new party - Nationalist Congress - Kerala. Kappen will be the party's president and Babu Karthikeyan will be its executive chairman. The NCP's Kerala unit, currently a constituent of the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF), was split earlier this month. Kappen announced his decision to leave the LDAF. On 14 February, he joined the Congress-led United Democratic Front at a rally in his constituency Pala under the leadership of Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithalan.
Kappen says that I did not get justice from the Left Democratic Front and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan asked to contest from Kuttadu assembly seat. We will ask the UDF to contest three seats in the upcoming assembly elections. The NCP has been an ally of the Left parties in Kerala for years and has two MLAs, including a Minister of State, while the third seat is now vacant after the death of their MLA in 2019. The NCP got a boost when Kappen won the Pala assembly seat in the by-elections in 2019. Here KM Mani was an MLA since 1967 and did not lose a single assembly election. This seat was vacant after his death.
