KOCHI: With Asha Sanil stepping down as the district panchayat chief on Friday, the factional tussle and jockeying for power plaguing the state Congress has scalped yet another incumbent of elected office in the district. Prior to this, the Kalamassery, Thrikkakara and Maradu municipalities, also situated in Ernakulam, had witnessed their respective chiefs being eased out of office, thanks to the torrid groups within the party.
It was in last November, Jessy K Peter stepped down from the post as Kalamassery municipal chairman after the ‘I’ faction came up against her. Though the former chairperson tried her level best to retain the post, the DCC asked her to resign to satisfy the ‘I’ faction. Nearly after a month, the Maradu Municipality witnessed a change of guard with Suneela Siby stepping down from the chairperson post following the District Congress Committees direction. “The Congress leadership in the district is always running behind power. They don’t want to serve the people and that is what reflected in Maradu, Kalamassery and Thrikkakara. If the Congress is ruling a local body, there might be a change of guard at regular intervals,” said K J Antony, CPM leader and Corporation Opposition leader.
Sanil’s exit comes amid the political grapevine rife of an imminent change of guard in the Kochi Corporation, with talk of Mayor Soumini Jain’s ouster doing the rounds.
Meanwhile, Sanil who submitted her resignation to the district panchayat secretary said she was quitting as per the instruction of the party leadership. “ The party nominated me from 15 members for the post and I am happy to obey the party’s directive. The party gave a letter on March 28 asking me to step down on April 24. Since the panchayat secretary was on leave I couldn’t submit the resignation on April 24,” said Sanil.
She refuted the reports of the internal feud within the party. “I could make the district panchayat one of the best performing local bodies in the state. The civic body bagged the honour for the best district panchayat in the state in the past three years,” she said.