THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The KPCC executive meeting scheduled to take place on Monday is set to be a stormy affair, with the various factions in the state Congress likely to trade charges in the wake of the poll fiasco.
KPCC chief V M Sudheeran, Oommen Chandy and Ramesh Chennithala, who are being held responsible for the Congress’ slump, are likely to face the ire of the members. And the prominent ‘A’ and ‘I’ factions are geared up to take on each other at the 105-member executive committee meeting.
The issues related to candidates’ selection, backstabbing by senior leaders, controversial decisions taken during the end of the UDF Government’s tenure and corruption are all going to boomerang on the leadership. Sudheeran is going to be the main target of some of the leaders, which was quite evident from the statements of former Excise Minister K Babu and K Sudhakaran, the losing Congress candidate in the Uduma Assembly seat.
Soon after the declaration of results, the losing candidates had resorted to a blamegame, with several senior Congress leaders openly flaying the party state brass for the humiliation. And the sabre-rattling had prompted the KPCC chief to issue a directive to the Congress men not to go public with their views on intra-party matters and instead raise the issues at the executive meeting.Though Sudheeran has said the meeting will address all the issues with an open mind, it is unlikely that the factional leaders will allow the meeting to be a smooth affair. In several of the constituencies, it has been alleged that the rival Congress groups had worked against one another.
It is unlikely that the issue of picking the new Leader of Opposition will figure at the meeting even though it might come up at some point during the discussions. And Sudheeran has made it clear that the AICC will take the call.
Sudhakaran’s dreams wilted in UDF bastions
Kasargod: Congress strongman K Sudhakaran’s dream of wresting back Udma assembly constituency was killed in UDF bastions, where he did not get the expected leads against incumbent MLA K Kunhiraman.“We were not able to increase polling and thereby the lead in Udma and Chemnad panchayat,” he said.In Udma, where the UDF is ruling, Sudhakaran got a lead of only 92 votes. In Chemnad and Muliyar panchayats, too, the UDF was not able to get the votes T Siddique got during the parliamentary election in 2014.In Chemnad, a stronghold of the IUML, Sudhakaran got a lead of 5,867 votes; whereas Siddique had a lead of 6,874 votes. The UDF leaders were disappointed that it could not maintain the lead even while the number of voters considerably increased.