KASARAGOD: Kasaragod MP and senior leader Rajmohan Unnithan stoked controversy in the factionalism-hit party by asking senior leaders Oommen Chandy and Ramesh Chennithala sarcastically to form their own party if they want only their nominees as presidents of all 14 district Congress committees (DCC). Twenty-three leaders of the Congress and the Youth Congress — led by outgoing Kasaragod DCC president Hakeem Kunnil — have written to Congress state chief K Sudhakaran seeking disciplinary action against Unnithan.
Speaking to mediapersons, the Kasaragod MP said Chandy and Chennithala controlled the Congress in the state for 18 years. “During these 18 years, only their writ ran in the party and they decided the district presidents and other office-bearers. No one could become even the (panchayat-level) mandalam president without their consent. And we accepted their decisions,” he said. Now, the Congress has a new president in K Sudhakaran and leader of opposition in V D Satheesan,” he said.
“Now let them (Chandy and Chennithala) accept the decision of the new leadership,” Unnithan said, adding they should learn from A K Antony, who never intervened or commented on the decisions taken by them after he left state politics for a role in the national leadership. Hitting out at Chandy and Chennithala, the MP said: “If all the DCC presidents should be their nominees, what is the purpose of the KPCC president, the leader of the opposition, and the high command,” he asked.
If Chandy and Chennithala want all the DCC presidents to be their nominees, they should form their own party, he sarcastically said, and twisted the knife by adding: “Jose K Mani can have his nominees as his party’s presidents in all the 14 districts”.
Unnithan said factionalism was killing the party in Kerala and groups were the first refuge of the ineligible leaders. “Party workers don’t want groups. They want to dislodge the Narendra Modi government in the next parliamentary elections and Pinarayi Vijayan in Kerala,” he said. The Congress could be strengthened only if the loyalty of the leaders lied with the party and not the group, he said.