Rift in Congress out in open after Kerala defeat
image for illustrative purpose
Thiruvananthapuram In the aftermath of one of the worst mauling the Congress-led UDF in Kerala suffered in the assembly polls, when it saw its tally came down from 47 in 2016 to 41 in 2021, fireworks in the party have started.
In the 2016 assembly polls, the Congress had 22 seats, but in the results that came out on Sunday, its tally was 21, leaving all and sundry in gloom. What has hurt the Congressmen most was, all of them expected that never before has a sitting government retained power and hence, it would be natural that they will return, but that did not happen.
And hence after two days of silence, the fireworks have begun with various leaders and feeder organisations baying for the blood of seasoned veterans. On the chopping block is State party president Mullapally Ramachandran, who many thought would put in his papers, but according to sources, he has left that decision to the party high command.
The first to sound the bell was young Congress MP from Ernakulam- Hibi Eden, who wrote in his Facebook, "Why do we still need a sleeping president?" The losing candidate at Kanjirapally in Kottayam district, Joseph Vazhakan, also a senior office bearer of the party said the need of the hour is a very strong leadership.
"The party has to have a cadre structure. If one looks back, Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala was very active and took up a lot of issues, but he failed to get any support from the party," said Vazhakan. Even though Congress party in Kerala has always been divided between the followers of K. Karunakaran and AK Antony, after 2000, the Karunakaran faction was led by Chennithala and the Antony faction by two time former Chief Minister OommenChandy, which continues even today.
However in the past two years a new power Centre surfaced in the form of KC Venugopal, now a Rajya Sabha MP from Rajasthan, has the full blessings of Rahul Gandhi.
Taking a broadside at Venugopal, without naming him, Vazhakan said the practice of running to Delhi for everything has to stop. There has to be delegation of authority.
