Congress infighting in Kerala out in the open

Thiruvananthapuram: The internal conflict within the state unit of the Congress party that heads the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala has come out into the open, with indications that an imminent intervention by the party high command in Delhi is likely.

The latest spark was ignited by a report in an English daily that claimed Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Ramesh Chennithala had expressed his resentment with chief minister Oommen Chandy, saying the chief minister could “go his own way”.

A number of Congress leaders immediately denied the report. Senior leaders Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan and K. Sudhakaran said it was unlikely that Chennithala would make such a statement. As speculation mounted regarding an internal blow-up within the Congress, Chennithala told mediapersons: “I have not given any official interview to any person or newspaper”.

That, however, failed to douse the raging political fires triggered by the news report.

The ‘I’ group in the Congress that supports Chennithala feels he had been humiliated by the ‘A’ group that backs the chief minister. Chennithala was first offered a cabinet berth as deputy chief minister or home minister, and the promise was later reneged on. The ‘A’ group, however, says there had been no such promise and that Chennithala had never been keen to be in the cabinet.

The humiliation was compounded for Chennithala by a media build-up about an imminent cabinet reshuffle by the time his Kerala Yatra reached the state capital. However, when the Yatra ended, there was no inkling of any reshuffle or even a hint that Chennithala would be taken into the cabinet.

To complicate matters for the UDF, Kerala Congress (B) leader R. Balakrishna Pillai said on Wednesday that his son K.B. Ganesh Kumar deserved a cabinet berth since each party with an MLA was entitled to it. Pillai had been offered the chairmanship of a government commission, but he said a cabinet berth for his party was the immediate priority.

Kumar had been ousted from the cabinet after his wife Yamini Thankachy personally complained to the chief minister about harassment by her husband.

All indications are that the party high command will mediate to get the ‘I’ and ‘A’ camps to resolve the crisis involving the senior-most leaders in the party’s state unit.