THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: When the 85th plenary summit of the Congress begins at Raipur on Friday, four senior leaders from the state will be conspicuously absent.
While veterans A K Antony and Oommen Chandy will not be attending due to health reasons, senior leader V M Sudheeran plans to stay away allegedly due to resentment over the central leadership not addressing his concerns against the incumbent state leadership. In the latest development, senior leader Mullappally Ramachandran also cancelled his trip.
Ever since bidding adieu to national politics when his Rajya Sabha tenure ended last year, 82-year-old Antony has been based in Thiruvananthapuram. Though he visits Indira Bhavan and meets leaders and occasionally attends party programmes, he has not been taking part in other activities. Another veteran 79-year-old Oommen Chandy is currently undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Bengaluru.
However 74-year-old Sudheeran has been staying away due to an altogether different reason. Sudheeran has always been a harsh critic of State Congress president K Sudhakaran’s style of functioning. When the latter took over the mantle from Mullapally Ramachandran in 2021, Sudheeran had even warned that Sudhakaran’s leadership may not keep the party in good stead.
Terming the KS Brigade as ‘fascists’, Sudheeran alleged that the social media group has been targeting Sudhakaran’s detractors within and outside the party. When Tariq Anwar, national general secretary in charge of the state, met Sudheeran in 2021 to persuade him not to resign from the Political Affairs Committee and the All India Congress Committee, the latter demanded to disband the KS Brigade.
But much to the chagrin of Sudheeran nothing happened, which led him to remain aloof from mainstream politics.
A source close to Sudheeran told TNIE that even while keeping away from party activities, he has been attending programmes that are of interest to him.
“The other day he attended a programme at St Joseph’s College Alappuzha, the constituency he had represented four times in Lok Sabha. Sudheeran has never fancied Sudhakaran’s style of functioning. It is not good even in Kannur politics. The number of party legislators in the district has come down from four to two. Sudheeran’s grievance is that over the last two years, the party has cut a sorry figure,” said the source.
Though Sudheeran had stepped down from the AICC and the PAC, the central leadership is yet to accept his resignation. His name has been included in the list of leaders who have got voting rights in the plenary summit. But the senior Congress leader has decided to stay put in the state capital and keep a tab on the developments in Raipur.