The Congress party in Kerala, under a new PCC president, has initiated steps to tighten its grip on the State’s coalition Government headed by party Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. The first step in this direction is a decision to enforce code of conduct for the party’s Ministers. Stringent rules would also be applicable in the case of conduct of senior party leaders.
The decision to enforce the 30-point code of conduct for Congress Ministers was taken at the PCC office-bearers meeting held on Wednesday on the proposal of new PCC chief VM Sudheeran in the context of the widespread complaints that they were not in the habit of holding discussions in the party on serious issues.
The Government will no more be able to take policy decisions without prior discussions in the party. The practice of organising official programmes at regional levels without informing local leadership will now come to an end. From now on, district party presidents and other senior local functionaries would have to be informed before the visit of a PCC office-bearer or Minister.
The first PCC office-bearers’ meeting to be held after Sudheeran’s appointment as president also decided to constitute five-member committees to regulate and monitor the performance of each Congress Minister. The members of the committee will include the Minister of the concerned department and a State Congress general secretary.
Another decision the meeting took was to constitute a three-member committee for coordination between the party and the Government with the aim of improving the relationship between the two. State Congress vice-president MM Hassan and general secretaries Thampanoor Ravi and Sooranad Rajasekharan will be the members of this panel.
At the meeting, Sudheeran issued an order banning public statements by leaders on matters related to seat-sharing in the UDF and selection of candidates. He said leaders of the UDF constituents also should restrain themselves from making such statements. Senior Congress leader and UDF convener PP Thankachan was asked to take up this matter with the allies.
Avoiding relationships with tainted persons, taking extra care in appointments of Ministers’ aides, maintaining transparency in fund mobilization, etc were some of the other proposals that came up during the meeting. Sudheeran said that care should be taken to ensure that only one Congress leader took part in TV channel debates at one time.
Observers noted that the Congress in Kerala was moving towards tightly disciplined functioning since the high command last week appointed group-neutral leaders Sudheeran and VD Satheesan as its president and vice-president respectively rejecting the protests raised by “group managers’ Chandy and Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, former PCC chief.
The first major step in this direction was the ban Sudheeran imposed on criticisms against party president Sonia Gandhi who had handpicked him for the PCC chief’s position. Though the immediate reason for his order was a statement by K Sudhakaran MP, observers said it was actually aimed at Chandy and Chennithala.
Wednesday’s PCC office-bearers’ meeting discussed the list of the development activities of the UDF Government to be used for campaigning in the lok Sabha election but the controversial Rs 2,000-crore Aranmula international airport in Pathanamthitta district, a pet project of Chief Minister Chandy, did not figure in it.
It is said that this project was not included in the list on personal instructions from Sudheeran who had been critical of it from the time of its inception. Newly appointed State Congress vice-president Satheesan, one of the prominent members of the UDF’s so-called Green Group, also was against this project.
Chandy took part in the meeting just for ten minutes towards the end of it. In his brief speech at the meet, he effectively ruled out allocating additional lok Sabha seats to allies Kerala Congress (M) and Muslim league. He said 85 percent of the seats in Kerala would be contested by the Congress and an understanding was yet to be reached at with the Socialist Janata (Democratic).