thiruvananthapuram the developments within the congress in connection with the finalising of the candidates has made it clear that the i and a groups which were calling the shots during the time of election has become irrelevant a new high command group is expected to gain strength in the party under aicc general secretary k c venugopal with these elections many fresh faces are expected in the list of 91 candidates and some of them have been handpicked by the new group which enjoys the patronage of rahul gandhithe list is also expected to include around 10 candidates who were directly chosen by the group most of them are people without a political history but experts in their own fieldsapart from the 20 sitting mlas k c joseph have withdrawn from contesting the elections there will be around 3040 candidates who have been in active politics and have contested earlier as well the rest will be fresh faces all be of the high command group the mps from kerala too had a say in deciding the candidates this time indicating that they too may remain close to the new group the mps were asked to give a list of winning candidates from their respective districtsthe emergence of the new group is seen as a setback to both oommen chandy and ramesh chennithala in earlier elections the list given by them were approved by the high command after some discussions this time around even these two leaders were put on defensive over nemom seatboth chandy and chennithala were asked to leave their comfort zones and spent more time explaining their side so much that they werent able to press for their candidates the chances of chandys close aides k babu and k c joseph making it to the list are bleaksources said chennithala too tried his best to get muvattupuzha seat for joseph vazhakkan considered safe for him the high command group had made its presence felt during the revamp of the kpcc also