After a closed-door meeting with the KPCC president Ramesh Chennithala, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said on Monday that Ramesh had turned down Cabinet berth twice in the past when he was invited to join the Cabinet.
Chandy kept repeating what Ramesh had said in the past - that the post of KPCC president is more powerful than that of any minister.
“When it comes to the party, the KPCC president is more powerful than even the post of Chief Minister. In the party affairs, PCC president is the last word, there is only the AICC president above him. Chennithala doesn’t require anyone’s charity to join the Cabinet,” the Chief Minister added.
Meanwhile, senior Congress leader K Muraleedharan told Express that the media could not have ‘created’ the news without any talks about the Cabinet reshuffle being held within the Congress.
“Obviously, the talks about Cabinet reshuffle would have taken place. Since the talks between the two groups failed, now the entire Cabinet reshuffle plan has been shelved,” Muraleedharan said.
With an imminent Cabinet reshuffle doing the rounds, leaders from both ‘A’ and ‘I’ groups of the Congress had come out in the open the other day against each other over portfolio allocation to the KPCC president, with the bone of contention being the Home Ministry.
The question was whether it made any sense for the ‘A’ group to have that crucial portfolio be taken away from them, even as the Assembly Speaker was also from the ‘I’ group.