VP Sanu, National President of the Students Federation of India (SFI), the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) -- CPI(M) -- will be the party candidate for the bye-election to the Malappuram Lok Sabha constituency. The seat became vacant after sitting Member of Parliament (MP) and national secretary of Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) PK Kunhalikutty resigned in early February, presumably to contest the Kerala Assembly elections in April.
"The fight begins. Against hunger, caste system, capitalism, communalism and Sangh Parivar. Be with me," VP Sanu wrote on Facebook soon after the announcement.
Active in politics since he was very young - through Balasangam, the children's organisation affiliated to CPI(M), and later the SFI, Sanu is now a member of the Malappuram district committee of the CPI(M).
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections he had contested against Kunhalikutty, veteran leader of the IUML, an important constituent of the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF). Sanu lost the election by 2,60,153 votes.
Watch: VP Sanu interview for 2019 election
Kunhalikutty was the sitting MP of Malappuram since 2017, after he won a bye-election, following the death of the former IUML leader and Union Minister E Ahamed. Kunhalikutty had then resigned as Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Vengara to contest the bye-election. In his decades-long career, he has been elected as an MLA for seven times, from 1982. Only in 2006, he was defeated in the Kuttippuram constituency by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) which fielded KT Jaleel.
The bye-election to Malappuram Lok Sabha constituency will be held on April 6, along with the state assembly polls. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is fielding AP Abdullakutty, its national vice president, at Malappuram. Abdullakutty, who had begun his political career with the CPI(M) and became a two-time MP, later joined the Congress and became an MLA. In 2019, after he was denied a Lok Sabha seat for the elections, Abdullakutty joined the BJP.