Former minister and Kerala Congress (B) leader R. Balakrishna Pillai, who is currently in jail over the Idamalayar corruption case, has decided to contest the upcoming assembly elections as a candidate of the United Democratic Front.
“He will be contesting the elections,” KC(B) general secretary C. Venugopalan Nair said after meeting Mr Pillai in the Thiruvananthapuram Central prison.
“This we have decided after seeking expert legal opinion. There is no legal bar on his contesting. But we have not fixed a date for filing his nomination.”
Mr Nair said a leading advocate in the High Court had said that relevant sections barring a convict from contesting were not applicable in Mr Pillai’s case.
Advocate Mohammad Shah, a High Court advocate, said that while convicting Mr Pillai, the Supreme Court had not mentioned under which particular offence he was convicted and whether the crime came under the purview of the Representation of the Peoples Act.
“Unless he is convicted under offences under the list Representation of People’s Act, there is no bar for his contesting elections,” he said. “The Idamalayar court had mentioned the crime under offences of the Prevention of Corruption Act but it was overturned by the High Court.”
Mr Pillai’s son and acting chairman of the party, K.B. Ganesh Kumar, said that his father’s physician, Dr N.N. Murali, will also file papers as a dummy candidate.
Meanwhile, EC sources said that accepting or rejecting the nomination was left to the discretion of the returning officer.