THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The AICC leadership on Sunday approved a jumbo committee of KPCC office-bearers including 96 secretaries and 10 general secretaries, in addition to 34 general secretaries announced in January.
A 175-member KPCC executive committee too has been announced. KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran - who was appointed on September 19, 2018 - has finally got a full-fledged committee ahead of the local body polls.
Factional politics had delayed the process even as assembly byelections and Lok Sabha elections went by before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. Besides those from the 'A' and the 'I' factions, several leaders without group leanings have also found place in the new list.
In January, 12 vice-presidents and 34 general secretaries were appointed. But that did not enable the KPCC president to convene the executive committee.
Mullappally told TNIE that various factors like community reservations and linguistic equations, referring to Subbaiah Rai from Kasaragod and Anglo Indian representative Charles Dias, have been considered. "Concerns of the youth, women and the SC/ST leaders have also been addressed. They have finally received a sizeable representation. Ten women leaders have found a place in the KPCC secretaries' list," Mullapally said.
Prominent women leaders in the KPCC secretaries' list are Jebi Mather, All India Youth Congress secretary, and Jyothi Vijayakumar, who came into the limelight after translating the speeches of Rahul Gandhi and Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi. Jyothi is the daughter of D Vijayakumar, the Congress byelection candidate at Chengannur.
The youth leaders in the list include former NSUI secretary S Sarath, who was a Congress candidate from the Cherthala assembly constituency, former Youth Commission chairman RV Rajesh, the first elected state Youth Congress (YC) general secretary DV Vinodkrishna, former Thiruvananthapuram district YC president PS Prasanth and YC state general secretaries Rinku Cheriyan, KS Gopakumar and Aneesh Varikkannamala.
The new general secretaries include former Ernakulam DCC president VJ Poulose, former Malappuram DCC president E Mohammed Kunhi, VA Narayanan, who has been retained, PK Jayalakshmy, the lone woman minister in the previous UDF ministry, former Haripad MLA B Babu Prasad, former All India Youth Congress secretary Deepthy Mary Varghese, former KSU president VS Joy, Sony Sebastian, who has often been considered a Congress candidate from the Irikkur assembly constituency, former KTDC chairman Vijayan Thomas and former Youth Commission vice-chairman Martin George.