Kerala Congress (Joseph)

Kerala Congress (Joseph), usually abbreviated as KC(J), was a commonly used informal name for a regional political party, the Kerala Congress, in the state of Kerala, India, during the years 1979-2010 when it was headed by P. J. Joseph who was the Minister for Public Works in the Government of Kerala till 1 May 2010.^[1] This name was used to distinguish the parent party from the various other factions which were referred to by the names of their respective leaders. The official name of the party continued to be the Kerala Congress.

It was a constituent of the Left Democratic Front but in 2010 it separated from the front and merged with the Kerala Congress (M) Party which is a constituent of the United Democratic Front.

In the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, KC(J) has won the Idukki seat (the party later had two seats in the Lok Sabha with the merger of P. C. Thomas's IFDP. It won 2 seats in 2001 Kerala polls.

For the 2011 Kerala Assembly elections, both P. J. Joseph and P. C. Thomas claimed that their respective factions were entitled to the original party, but the election commission froze the claims and directed the followers of Joseph to contest under the name of the Kerala Congress (M) to which it had united, and the followers of Thomas to contest under the name Kerala Congress (Anti-merger Group).

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