THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even as infighting continues in the state unit of the Congress, a section of senior leaders is stirring another move within the party. If state president K Sudhakaran is removed from office, then Leader of Opposition V D Satheesan should also be replaced, they feel.
Those behind the move are keen to ensure that discussions over a change of guard remain active until the Lok Sabha poll outcome is known on June 4.
A majority of the senior Congress leaders, especially sitting MPs, are worried over the current tussle between Sudhakaran and Satheesan.
The two have not been seeing eye-to-eye over the past few weeks. Their camaraderie was hit during Lok Sabha election campaigning when a leaked audio clip involving them, from a Google meet, went around party circles.
While Sudhakaran suspects it was deliberately leaked by the Satheesan camp to show him in bad light, Satheesan vehemently denies the same. When Sudhakaran encountered stumbling blocks in his attempt to return to the Indira Bhavan after the general elections, he again suspected foul play from the Satheesan camp.
The new development, to have the state party chief and the legislative party leader removed together, has come at a time when the Congress national leadership had maintained that talks on organisational revamp and post-poll meetings should be held only after June 4. “Speculation is rife that the team in charge should be removed together as Sudhakaran and Satheesan took up the key posts around the same time. This has definitely come as a blow to the latter, as a senior leader who came up with this proposal is keen to take over the Leader of Opposition role by dethroning him,” said a party source.
However, it may not be as easy as it sounds to get the move completed. While the party leadership has exuded confidence of romping home in all 20 Lok Sabha seats, the dissident leaders do not think so.
A senior ‘A’ group leader told TNIE that several leaders are engaged in conspiracies in various dens on how to take advantage of the situation on the lack of camaraderie between Sudhakaran and Satheesan.
“The conspirators can demand the ouster of those in charge. They are eager to see that the current leadership does not make a clean sweep. This way, they can put pressure on the national leadership for the removal of Sudhakaran and Satheesan. But it will be difficult to proceed with Sudhakaran as his proxies are controlling Indira Bhavan,” said the ‘A’ group leader.
Both Sudhakaran and Satheesan are aware of the conspiracies being hatched behind their backs. While they have decided to keep mum on that, their loyalists remain confident the dissident leaders’ wish is not going to materialise.