The Left Democratic Front on Wednesday released their candidature list for 124 out of the total 140 seats in the forthcoming May 16 elections.

Incidentally, out of the total 124 candidates feature two journalists for the CPI (M), one male and another female.

Not only the two candidates are from the same organization, both of them come from politically active families

However, it does not come as a surprise as both these names were speculated to be part of the celebrity brigade contesting this election for the Left.

The Left named MV Nikesh Kumar as their candidate from Azhikode who is the editor-in-chief of Reporter TV, one of the most recognisable names in Kerala journalism. 

The candidature of Nikesh did not go down well with everybody in the party, with incidents of poster coming up against him.

Following his stint at Asianet, he went on to head Kerala's first news channel India Vision. Later he started his own channel Reporter TV in 2011.

Nikesh is the son of veteran Communist leader MV Raghavan who later formed the Communist Marxist Party which aligned with the rival-UDF. Raghavan had been one of the prominent CPI (M) leaders from Kannur.  In 1986, Raghavan was dismissed from the party for his alternative view of forming an alliance with the IUML.

Although 50 odd CPI (M) workers led protests against the possibility of Veena’s candidature from Aranamula, the LDF chose to field Veena George.

Her mother was a local body member in the same district for Kerala Congress (Jacob) faction.

Veena was the first female Executive Editor of a Malayalam news channel when she joined Reporter TV in June last year.

She started her career with Kairali TV  and later joined Manorama News and IndiaVision.

Before starting her career as a journalist she was a popular SFI leader.