THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state Congress is facing new political and moral challenges as it is working over time to wriggle out of the political crisis it has fallen into after allegations of sexual misconduct against MLA Rahul Mamkootathil surfaced. The KPCC leadership was in a hurry to close the Rahul chapter through two consecutive actions.
One was asking the MLA to step down as Youth Congress president and second, by suspending him from the primary membership. Thus, by dismissing any type of organisational inquiry on the whole episode, Congress was betting its hope on the party’s high morals. However, the state government announcing a crime branch probe into the case against Rahul has put the principal opposition party in a tight spot. The legal battle to be fought by Rahul will also be a test for Congress.
“It will take time to overcome this difficult situation,” a senior Congress leader told TNIE. “We thought that by suspending the MLA we had scored a political victory over our opponents. However, government action has come as a challenge for us. The outcome of it will determine the future of Rahul as well as that of the Congress,” he said.
The Congress which was forced to stall the preparatory works for the local body elections restarted it by holding house visits and receiving funds from the public on Friday.
The leadership is optimistic as it claims that the public has taken the actions taken by the party in good sense and recognised its moral strength. “I visited three panchayats and we did not encounter any questions from the public,” KPCC president Sunny Joseph told TNIE. “The public are aware that similar issues exist in other parties also. And how far did they go in taking actions,” he asked.
Congress is also warming up for the coming assembly session as it knows well that it will witness the first political power play between the ruling front and opposition. The opposition is also in search of issues to be used against the government and its MLAs.
They are happy that the DYFI’s violent protests against Shafi Parambil in Vadakara has given them the much-needed political edge. However, it was short lived after the Youth Congress workers took out a violent march against the office of a news channel.
“At the grassroots level, the party lost the tempo it was building up,” political analyst Ajith Sreenivasan told TNIE. “Congress has started on a clean slate against a government which is facing 10 years of anti-incumbency. At the organisational level too, they had resolved the community equation by bringing in Sunny Joseph as Congress chief and three working presidents,” he said.
Though the leadership claims that its swift action was received well, the social media posts of Uma Thomas, MLA, and AICC general secretary K C Venugopal’s wife questions that claim.
These women who are related to Congress are an example of how women even in the Congress affiliated houses think about the issue. To make it worse, the police actions related to fake voter ID allegedly used in the YC organisational polls might also destabilise us in the coming days as there are chances that BJP would use it nationally,” he said.
Election preparation
Congress which was forced to stall the preparatory works for the local body elections restarted it by holding house visits and receiving funds from the public
The party is warming up for the coming assembly session as it will witness the first political power play between the ruling front and opposition
The opposition is also in search of issues to be used against the government and its MLAs