KOCHI: The Congress parliamentary party committee meeting on Sunday decided to field KR Premkumar as its deputy mayor candidate for the upcoming election on Wednesday.
The meeting was attended by Congress leaders Benny Behnan, K Babu, Dominic Presentation, Tony Chammany and Soumini Jain. Though the party had earlier decided to field KD Martin, the state leadership insisted on Premkumar. Meanwhile, the factional feud in the Congress took an ugly turn with several councillors deciding to stay away from the meeting in protest against the move to remove Soumini Jain.
A section of the councillors also allege that the leadership’s move to field a Hindu for the deputy mayor post was part of a plan to remove the mayor. "The communal equation will be lost if Premkumar wins and then the leadership can easily remove the mayor," said a source. LDF will field opposition leader KJ Antony as its deputy mayor candidate.