THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor, who is the cynosure of all eyes ever since he led a tour to Malabar, will hog the limelight yet again on Sunday. Tharoor, who is the national chairman of All India Professional Congress (AIPC), will deliver the keynote address at its state conclave titled, Decode, being held in Kochi on Sunday.
Incidentally, the two warring leaders, Tharoor and Leader of Opposition V D Satheesan will be attending separate sessions and will not come face to face.It should be recalled that it was the AIPC’s state-level committees which had rendered all support to Tharoor’s tour of the country during his campaign when he contested the Congress presidential election. The decision to hold state conclaves across the country was taken at the national conclave held in Raipur in July.
AIPC Kerala chapter president Dr S S Lal had accordingly scheduled to hold the conclave in Thiruvananthapuram in August. But due to the inconvenience of state Congress president K Sudhakaran it had to be cancelled. On Sunday, Sudhakaran will be inaugurating the programme online at 9.30am as he has cited inconvenience in travelling to Kochi. Dr Lal told TNIE that Tharoor had given him his dates a month ago.
“The conclave has nothing to do with the current controversy generated by Tharoor’s Malabar tour. We don’t have the bandwidth or the mandate to solve such problems. Also, AIPC has no intention to add fuel to the fire”, said Dr Lal, who had unsuccessfully contested from Kazhakootam Assembly constituency in 2021.
There will be four sessions - Kerala - Way forward, environment, education, health and social - which will see experts in the respective fields attending it. Satheesan will be attending the Leaders Forum in the evening where he is expected to share the dais with AICC secretary Sreenivasan Krishnan, Ernakulam district Congress chief Mohammed Shiyas, and MLAs Uma Thomas, K Babu and T J Vinod.The state conclave of the AIPC is being held at a hotel on Paramara Road, near MG Road, Kochi.