CHENNAI: THE organisational revamp of the State unit proposed by TNCC chief S Thirunavukkarasar appears to have been put on the backburner following stiff resistance from sections within the party.
After Thirunavukkarasar was given charge of the State unit by Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi in September last, he adopted an aggressive approach to shape the party’s strategy for the local body polls. By doing so, he tried to force ally DMK to part with more, winnable seats for the polls. But his approach met with opposition from within and from the DMK, after which he was forced to back off. Anyway, the local body polls were cancelled following a court order.
To tone up the organisation, Thirunavukkarasar after consultations with colleagues proposed to break up certain large district units on the lines of the Dravidian parties.
“As of now, we have 61 party organisational districts. I submitted a proposal to raise that number to 72 creating new district units by splitting the big ones. This would have eased the task of carrying out party programmes,” Thirunavukkarasar said.
Along with the restructuring of the organisational units, he had also recommended that under-performing office-bearers at the State and district levels be dropped and suggested the names of vibrant young hands as replacement.
But certain powerful sections in the party, including former Union minister P Chidambaram, are said to have scuttled Thirunavukkarasar’s efforts. Former TNCC president EVKS Elangovan too was against the proposed changes.
“Chidambaram prevailed upon the high command to continue with the incumbent office-bearers. So, the revamp proposal has been pushed to the backburner for now,” a senior leader said.
However, Thirunavukkarasar denied it and said the process of discussion was still on. “It’s just a rumour. No such thing happened.
Discussions are still going on with our vice president Rahul Gandhi and in-charge of party affairs in Tamil Nadu Mukul Wasnik,” he told Express. The names of the new office-bearers would be announced soon, he added.
According to party sources, among the present 61 heads of district units, 25 are said to be loyalists of EVKS Elangovan and 10 are supporters of Chidambaram. Five others belong to the K V Thangkabalu faction.
Several of Elangovan’s supporters had cordial ties with Thirunavukkarasar during the initial months of his tenure. However, they turned against him after they learnt about the shake-up, which made his task of running the State unit that much more difficult.
“The high command should take into account the current volatile situation in the State. The revamp of the organisational set up is imperative to infuse fresh blood into the party and expand its base by capitalising on the political uncertainty,” said a State office-bearer of the Congress.