THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A group of leaders from the state Congress and Youth Congress approached party national president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday demanding action against senior leader Ramesh Chennithala for allegedly defaming national general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal and the party leadership on various social media platforms using his supporters. The complaint is the continuation of the group fight in the state party that got intensified with the delay in organisational revamp and dispute over the Rajya Sabha seat candidate.
A leaked audio clip in which a voice that resembles that of Chennithala asking followers to intensify attack against Venugopal on social media platforms led to the complaints reaching the national president.
While the senior leaders requested anonymity, Saju Khan, YC state secretary, confirmed that complaints have been sent to Sonia Gandhi, A K Antony, Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan who is the state disciplinary committee chairman, national general secretary in charge of the state Tariq Anwar, Congress state president K Sudhakaran and Opposition Leader V D Satheesan.
“Chennithala has been directly challenging the leadership through various Facebook pages such as RC Brigade, Ramesh Chennithala Fans and RC Our Leader, which he controls. His attempts to defame the party on the social media and demoralise the party workers are highly deplorable,” a senior Congress leader told TNIE.
Last Saturday, Congress state general secretary Pazhakulam Madhu took a dig at Chennithala under a congratulatory post written by former Alappuzha district party chief M Liju in favour of Rajya Sabha candidate Jebi Mather on Facebook. This had obviously not gone down well with the Chennithala camp as Pazhakulam Madhu was one of his staunch loyalists earlier.
Senior leader Jyothikumar Chamakkala, a Chennithala loyalist, rubbished the complaint over the audio clip saying it was too trivial as there was no authenticity over the clip.He told TNIE that the leadership should first take stringent action against Pazhakulam Madhu. “The audio clip is just a random one. How can it be linked to Chennithala allegedly targeting Venugopal or the party leadership?” asked Chamakkala.
When contacted, Thiruvanchoor said in the next few days, the disciplinary committee will be holding a sitting and taking stock of the situation. Apart from Thiruvanchoor, there are two other members, N Azhakeshan and Dr Arifa, in the committee.