KOTTAYAM: With pressure mounting on Jose K Mani for a political decision after his faction’s exclusion from the UDF, Jose has called a steering committee meeting of the party on Wednesday to discuss the party’s future course of action.The meeting is expected to discuss the CPM state secretariat’s favourable stand towards inducting Jose faction-led KC(M) in the LDF and CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan’s encouraging words on KC(M)’s political strength.
Meanwhile, Jose faction is learnt to have been asked to declare its political stance clear to proceed with the induction in the LDF, which forced Jose to expedite his decision. Moreover, party leadership has also passed indirect messages to its rank and file on the possibilities of tying up with LDF. Earlier, Jose interacted with party’s grassroots level members and local body members as well as convened meetings of assembly constituency-level leaders as part of collecting their opinion in formulating party’s future plans. The outcome of the meetings is also expected to be discussed in the steering committee.
In view of CPM’s open support to KC (M), Jose has toughened his stance and dismissed possibilities of further talks with the UDF leadership. “We have decided to stand as an independent party for the time being and there is no change in our decision so far,” Jose told reporters in Pala. State Election Commission, on Tuesday, is likely to consider a case with regard to the dispute between Jose and P J Joseph factions over the allocation of KC (M)’s official election symbol ‘Two Leaves’ for a by-election in a local body ward. Though the state commission’s decision won’t make any impact on the dispute between the factions, it may also come for discussion in the meeting.
Meanwhile, P J Joseph said more people will come to his side in the coming days. “We have already seen senior leaders with the Jose faction, including Josmon Mundakkal and Prince Luckose preferring to stay with the official faction after Jose faction was expelled from UDF. Prince’s name was in the list of UDF’s probable candidates for the previous Lok Sabha polls,” said Joseph.