KOCHI: A serious grudge harboured by senior Congressmen towards outgoing mayor Soumini Jain coupled with her refusal to give in to attempts to unseat her from the top post resulted in the district Congress committee (DCC) denying a berth for her in the coming local body polls, it has emerged.
Though the DCC had on Friday officially claimed that Jain had been left out of the list on her own request, a source said her name was struck off the list of candidates after senior leaders, who didn’t see eye to eye with Jain, closed ranks. Hibi Eden, MP, Dominic Presentation and other senior Congress leaders took revenge on Jain by ensuring that she didn’t get to contest the civic polls for a third time, said the source.
“It was the party which appointed Soumini Jain as Mayor. Though the party had given a clear directive to the outgoing mayor to hand over the seat to Shiny Mathew after two-and-a- half years, she refused to do so. The party has some commitments towards the public as well as to its workers. Her decision to stick to the mayoral post adversely affected the administration.
The party even lost two major standing committee seats. Since she won on a UDF ticket, she has to be loyal to the party. How can we run such a risk by fielding her again?” said a senior Congressman who sought anonymity.
According to a senior Congress councillor, Jain had taken unilateral decisions on several crucial issues.
“The outgoing council had several senior Congress leaders. If she had taken them into confidence, she might have been fielded. Deputy Mayor B Bhadra, who dared the leadership and ended up being
sidelined. is a case in point,” he added.
The source alleged that poor governance under Jain also resulted in low majority in the assembly and Lok Sabha polls. “ If she had worked in coordination with the other councillors, several projects could have been implemented in a time bound manner,” said the source.However, DCC chief T J Vinodh, MLA, refuted the charge.
“She requested not to consider her name citing some personal reasons. There are no other issues involved,” said Vinodh. Meanwhile, some of the senior Congress leaders said there was no difference of opinion as they claimed that Jain is the only councillor who stood against all odds.
“If any other person was in her position, they might have resigned from the post. She even gained the confidence of the KPCC president. She has proved that she deserves an assembly seat,” said the source.
Soumini Jain told TNIE that she had opted out of the polls on her own and that it was a ‘personal decision’.
“I didn’t want to contest the local body election due to some personal reasons and this had been conveyed to the district leadership. I don’t have any issue with the party. Soon I will hit the campaign trail,” she said.