It will soon be time for Congress President Rahul Gandhi to walk the talk as far as Kerala is concerned. On one side the young guns in the state are demanding a generational shift in the party leadership. On the other, the old guard is fighting tooth and nail to hang on. While the immediate goal is the Lok Sabha elections in less than a year, the end game would be the 2021 Assembly elections. The immediate provocation came from five young MLAs—V T Balram, Roji M John, Anil Akkara, Shafi Parambil
and Hibi Eden—who came up with a demand that the elders make way for the Gen Next.
True, the woeful performance in the Chengannur bypoll has been swept away in the avalanche of issues that cropped up with the allocation of the Rajya Sabha seat to its ally Kerala Congress, much to the chagrin of many leaders. But the issues raised by the youth brigade still remain relevant. It all started with P J Kurien’s thwarted bid for a fourth term in the Rajya Sabha, right on the heels of his six terms in the Lok Sabha. Kurien’s allegation regarding it being Oommen Chandy’s ploy has been met with a ‘We are not Chandy’s B-team’ response from the Young Turks. It is worth noting here that the Congress has sent only six MPs to the Upper House from Kerala while the CPM nominated 11 elders and the CPI, just four since 1980.
There was a time in the 1970s when the same Antony, Ravi and Chandy rose up in revolt against party elders R Shankar, C M Stephen, C K Govindan Nair and others, who were then in their late 60s. It is sheer irony that the young brigade of yore, now in their 70s and 80s, are holding on to their turf. The Congress President can only bank on youngsters to help him steer the Grand Old Party to the 2030 threshold and that is the crux of the issue that’s causing heartache to some of the elders. Clearly, the Congress cannot
afford to relegate its youth as yet another ‘group’.