KANNUR - Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) candidate M.V. Jayarajan Saturday hit the campaign trail in Kannur, considered a party bastion, ahead of the by-election for the assembly seat to be held Nov 7.

The CPI-M has fielded a heavy weight candidate in Jayarajan because he had won from the nearby Edakadu constituency in 1996 and in 2001 before taking a break in the 2006 polls.

Jayarajan launched his campaign by visiting the home of late party leader Azhikodan Raghavan and took the blessings of his widow.

“I seek votes in the name of development and those who desire that please vote for me,” Jayarajan said emerging from the Raghavan home.

Though the district is considered a CPI-M bastion, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) candidate has not won from the Kannur assembly seat in the past seven elections.

In the 2006 assembly polls, of the 10 seats in this district, the LDF won eight and the Congress two.

The by-election Nov 7 has been necessitated because Congress leader K. Sudhakaran, after a hat trick of wins, resigned when he won from the Kannur Lok Sabha seat.

Sudhakaran said that the Congress is on a strong wicket because of their track record in Kannur. He said that their candidate would be announced in the next few days.

“In the 2006 assembly election I won with a margin of more than 8,600 votes and for the recent Lok Sabha polls I got more than 23,000 votes from the Kannur assembly segment. But the CPI-M has already started playing truant by large scale manipulations in the voter’s list. It appears we will have to seek legal recourse to see that the list is corrected,” Sudhakaran told IANS.

Ernakulam and Alappuzha are the other two constituencies that also go to polls along with Kannur.