THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Adding to the woes of incumbent K Sudhakaran, who has been braving threats from certain quarters, new claimants have surfaced for the coveted office of the state Congress chief.
At a time when a section within the party is pushing for Christian representation in the top brass, senior leader Adoor Prakash, MP, on Wednesday made an open claim to the presidentship of the KPCC. “Am I not eligible for the post (of KPCC president)? I have been working for the Congress since 1972. I have never deserted the party and have reached where I am by working my way up from the booth level,” Prakash told TNIE.
Noticeably, it was just the other day that Sudhakaran faced a setback from the party's high command, which instructed him to go slow on his pet project — the organisational revamp.
Prakash’s claim for the top post came amid severe criticism for the dismal representation in the party of Ezhavas, the largest Hindu denomination in the state. There is growing resentment within the community over alleged disregard of its members when it comes to appointments to both organisational and parliamentary posts.
‘Karunakaran last to keep community equilibrium’
“Out of the total 21 Congress MLAs, there is only one Ezhava,” political analyst Ajith Sreenivasan said. Lack of representation in the assembly has been a point of discussion in the community, he said.
“After R Sankar, no Congress leader from the Ezhava community has become chief minister. While his contemporaries A K Antony and Oommen Chandy could make it to the top post, Vayalar Ravi was ignored. In the KPCC, there has been representation for the community through V M Sudheeran, Mullapally Ramachandran and K Sudhakaran,” Sreenivasan said.
The last leader who maintained the community equilibrium was K Karunakaran. Antony too worked to keep it, he added.
Meanwhile, a senior Congress leader said that the party doesn’t get much electoral support from the Ezhava community. That’s one reason why there is less representation, he said. However, Prakash challenged the contention.
“Only when the Congress assigns more leaders from the community in key roles will Ezhavas feel that they are getting enough representation. Earlier, there was a consensus in the Congress that only leaders from a particular community would be given certain positions. This practice has been done away with of late,” he added.