THIRUVANATHAPURAM: Kerala Congress president K Sudhakaran's dream project, Congress Unit Committee, is again in the news for all wrong reasons.
The recent controversy is over the death of State Congress treasurer V Prathapachandran, who died of cardiac arrest on December 20. There were allegations that Prathapachandran died due to mental stress caused by two CUC leaders from Kozhikode - Ramesh Kavil and Pramod Kottapally. However Ramesh has vehemently denied the allegations.
The CUC was constituted in October 2021, as part of attempt to build a strong base for the party, at the grass root level. If earlier booth committee was the base unit, Sudhakaran wanted to make the CUC the grass root level committee.
The RSS which has been running ‘Sakthi Kendras’ where booth in-charges as well as voters' list in-charges were assigned to visit every single household. Taking a cue from this RSS model, Sudhakaran was planning to replicate the initiative in Congress too.
On an average, 300 houses and 1,000 votes were brought under one booth. Sudhakaran’s plan was to see each booth being divided into six units. Five Congress workers will approach 50 houses with printed questionnaires, to identify pro-Congress families.
A senior Congress leader who owes allegiance to Sudhakaran told TNIE that the CUC concept failed as it could not go along with the party machinery.
“Only 50% CUC’s were formed. Since the organizational revamping did not take place on time as envisaged by Sudhakaran, there was lack of coordination between the CUC and party. Those behind the CUC formation took it up as a NGO thus making it a separate entity," said a senior Congress leader.
Sudhakaran had entrusted P Ramesh aka Ramesh Kavil to form CUCs in Malabar region. According to a party insider, a few crores were spent for formation of CUCs. At the recently held office bearers meeting, Prathapachandran was confronted by his party colleagues about funds provided for CUC formation. They also raised an issue about the Rs 137 challenge held during the 137th birth anniversary of the party last year.
Last week after Prathapachandran's death, his son Prajith Chandran approached the Kerala police chief alleging psychological torture by Ramesh and Pramod for his father's death. However, both the leaders vehemently denied the same.
Ramesh told TNIE that in the last six months, they had met Prathapachandran just once. “We had never entered into any arguments with Prathapachandran. But the truth should come out. It’s surprising how our names were dragged into this. We have taken a wait and watch policy now. Let’s see how the party takes up this issue and accordingly we will take a call on what needs to be done further," said Kavil.