THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Senior party leader KC Venugopal evinces interest in shifting base to Kerala, making it obvious that he is in the race for the post, which already has Ramesh Chennithala, Oommen Chandy and Mullappally in the running
A day after former chief minister Oommen Chandy told reporters that the Congress high command decides on who will be the party’s chief minister candidate in Kerala, more chief minister hopefuls have come to the forefront. AICC organising general secretary K C Venugopal evinced interest in shifting base to his home state making it obvious that he is also in the race for the post.
Over the past four years, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala has been doing a meritorious role where he levelled a slew of corruption charges against the state government, ranging from Rebuild Kerala, the denial of cyclone Ockhi funds, Sprinklr data transaction row, inflated power bills, denial of free quarantine facilities to NRKs to the corruption behind allotting of BevQ app.
He had also highlighted the extravagance and mismanagement of the LDF under the guise of the pandemic. However, with less than a year for the assembly elections, the Congress camp is seeing a resurgence of Chandy. Ever since the pandemic struck, Chandy had been acting like a parallel Norka Roots ‘control room’ at his Puthupally House at Jagathy here where welfare organisations in West Asia have been in touch with him daily. He has been repeatedly highlighting the apathy being meted out to NRKs by the government.
“Venugopal’s comment that those leaders who are a part of AICC leadership can also come under the helm of the state has not come as a shock to the CM hopefuls here as it is on expected lines. Besides Chennithala and Chandy, Venugopal, who was made the Rajya Sabha MP from Rajasthan recently, has now made it crystal clear his interest in shifting base to Kerala. KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran is also another chief minister hopeful in the reckoning where there is a concerted effort to defame him within the party as he is also emerging powerful,” a senior Congress leader told TNIE.
Ever since Venugopal became the number two in New Delhi after the Congress president, a parallel ‘power centre’ has been working with him. Majority of the 14 DCC presidents belonging to the two factions have also rallied behind Venugopal. Over the last several months, UDF convener Benny Behanan, who is one of the trusted lieutenants of Oommen Chandy, has been cozying up towards Chennithala.
“Oommen Chandy is keen to ensure that former KPCC president M M Hassan is made the UDF convener. Benny Behanan is not interested in stepping down even though he is the Chalakudy MP now. Over the last several weeks, the incumbent UDF convener has been actively criticising the LDF Government’s lapses in combating the pandemic,” another senior Congress MP told TNIE.
While Oommen Chandy and Mullappally will complete 76 years and 75 years respectively by the time the assembly elections are kicked off, Venugopal will be the youngest at 57 years. Chennithala will turn 65 next year. On Tuesday, Muslim League national general secretary P K Kunhalikutty MP had no qualms in openly admitting that not all is well within the UDF implying that a solution is still away in settling the issues in Kerala Congress (Mani).