THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The first meeting of the new state office-bearers of Congress witnessed strong criticism from ‘A’ and ‘I’ group leaders against the new leadership and a war of words between state president K Sudhakaran, MP, and Benny Behanan, MP. Former state presidents V M Sudheeran and Mullappally Ramachandran, who had criticised the style of functioning of the new leadership, didn’t attend the meeting. The two prominent groups objected to going forward with the membership campaign, launched on Monday, by the newly constituted unit committees.
“Their demand is that the membership campaign should be held only at the booth level. While the ‘A’ group leaders were against further organisational revamp as the Central leadership has announced elections, the ‘I’ group maintained a tactical silence on this,” said a senior Congress leader. When Sudhakaran informed ‘A’ group leaders K C Joseph, K Babu and Benny Behanan that it is the discretion of the Central leadership to decide whether to continue with the revamp or not, AICC general secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal intervened.
He said the ongoing membership campaign should continue and the organisational elections will happen in due course. Sudhakaran urged the leaders to refrain from making public statements about party’s internal matters. He said any criticism can be levelled in the party meetings. In the meeting, Behanan alleged that KS Brigade, a fan club of Sudhakaran, was the real force that controls the reconstituted unit committees. The unit committee leaders were given training by a group of academicians.
The state leadership directed the local legislators and MPs not to be part of the training. Without knowing this, Chalakudy MP Behanan visited the training camp where he was not welcomed. This led him to raise the issue at the leadership meet, leading to unruly scenes. A peeved Sudhakaran asked Behanan not to emulate Pinarayi Vijayan’s style while speaking with him. Sudhakaran reiterated that unit committees are training centres and MLA s and MPs need not meddle with them.
Indira Bhavan which sported a festive spirit after a long time turned out to be the venue of homecoming of former rebel leader Cherian Philip who returned to the party after two decades of association with the Left camp. Sudhakaran gave primary membership t o Cherian Philip. “Despite attending CPM’s study classes for 20 years, I still did not understand what Marxism is all about. I understood that their strategy has been to water down policies in accordance with needs.
Due to climate change, the Congress party has got a cold. But what has affected the CPM is deadly blood cancer,” said Cherian Philip. Opposition leader V D Satheesan, former chief minister Oommen Chandy and Ramesh Chennithala exuded confidence that the arrival of Cherian Philip would only strengthen the party further. On Wednesday, a meeting of the 23-member state executive will be held at Indira Bhavan.