THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The UDF meeting scheduled for Thursday will take up the assembly poll debacle during their daylong session. The findings of the five regional subcommittees will be discussed in detail and the local leaders, who were instrumental in ensuring the defeat of the Congress and other UDF candidates, would not be considered during the organisational revamping.
The five regional committees are headed by K A Chandran (Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam), V C Kabeer (Alappuzha, Kottayam and Ernakulam), P J Joy (Thrissur, Idukki and Pathanamthitta), K Mohankumar (Kozhikode, Malappuram and Palakkad) and Kurian Joy (Kannur, Kasaragod and Wayanad).
It has been more than a month since these regional committees had submitted their reports to Congress state president K Sudhakaran.
Accordingly, he had entrusted party working president and MLA P T Thomas with compiling the subcommittees’ recommendations. The delay in taking action against the Congress leaders who had worked against UDF’s interests is because of the absence of the state Congress executive committee.
“Immediately after the failure of its candidates in Vattiyoorkavu, Chengannur and Konni assembly byelections, the Congress should have initiated a fool-proof study. It was only due to sheer irresponsibility from the part of local and district-level Congress leaders and workers that certain candidates lost the elections by over 3,000 votes,” a senior Congress leader who also headed the fact-finding commission then told TNIE. The regional subcommittees had found serious dereliction of duties by some Congress leaders and workers who either posed a challenge or had adopted a non-cooperating attitude.
They recommended that these workers should be dealt with. At least, an explanation should be sought from them and ensure that they are not given any berth in the party committees. “It is a do-or-die situation for the Congress. So this time, the state Congress leadership will ensure that the guilty persons are dealt with seriously. If we don’t take stringent action, allies like RSP and Kerala Congress (Joseph) will walk out of UDF,” a top Congress leader told Express.