The Congress party's reasonably bright performance in Kerala in the context of its collapse in the national level in the 16th lok Sabha election has made State Chief Minister Oommen Chandy stronger and has removed all threats to the party-led UDF Government he heads. On Sunday, he celebrated his Government’s third anniversary with increased confidence.
The results also ended possibilities of any change in the State’s Congress leadership as its newly appointed president VM Sudheeran can now claim that he has been one of the architects of the party’s satisfactory poll performance. Of the total 20 seats in the State, the Congress won eight while its UDF allies bagged four and the left's victory was limited to just eight seats.
Rumours were rife till the day of vote-counting that the party high command might ask Chandy, who had been in the vortex of the infamous solar scam and several other scandals, to step down if the State unit performed badly in the election. In fact, indirect demands from within the Congress for his removal had been pending before the high command for the past one year.
However, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who are reportedly contemplating their own resignation for leading the party to the biggest ever electoral collapse, cannot think of taking even a small action against Chandy when 20 percent of the total seats the party has got nationally has come from Kerala.
Most of the allegations the UDF Government had faced in the past one year - including the solar scam and the land deal scandal related to his former gunman Salim Raj - were actually aimed directly at Chandy. The left had held a campaign for over six months demanding Chandy's resignation.
Chandy had led the UDF's campaign with the declaration that the election would be a referendum on the performance of his Government, giving hopes to his detractors in the State party, mainly the 'I' group led by Home Minister Chennithala, of a change in administration after the polls in which there were not many reasons for the Congress to perform well.
The Chief Minister himself had stated that there would be changes in the Government after the polls but cynics and his detractors in the Congress had interpreted this statement as an indication of his own realization that the election might not bring the kind of result he wanted and that his Government could lose the right to continue in such a scenario.
“It is not often that top leaders of a party desire its own collapse in an election. But some people here were exactly doing that because of their takeover dreams. However, Chandy has not only disappointed them all but also he emerged stronger as well,” said a top Congress functionary belonging to the 'A' group led by Chandy.
Sources close to the chief Minister said on Sunday that he might soon bring in the changes in the Government which he had promised before the polls though it was not yet clear whether he had got the clearance of the PCC for that. Indications are that these changes would be intended at establishing the total supremacy of his 'A' group in the Cabinet.