The beleaguered Congress in Kerala and the ruling UDF it leads have plunged into total disorder following the party High Command’s endorsement of State party president Ramesh Chennithala’s refusal to join the solar scam-tainted Government of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy.
Major UDF partners Muslim league and Kerala Congress(M) have declared war against the Congress even while stressing that there is no situation that calls for parting ways when group war exploded into critical levels in the Congress party with the faction led by Chennithala making it clear that Chandy need not expect their cooperation in State administration.
Chennithala has already said that Chandy could run it the way he wanted giving a clear message to his loyalists in the ‘I’ group that it would be open war against Chandy’s ‘A’ group from now on. Even group-neutral Congress leaders are now finding fault with Chandy for trying to lead Ramesh into a trap under the garb of his intention to induct him into the Cabinet.
Sources in the Congress now say that Chandy has lost all his credibility before party president Sonia Gandhi and other senior central leaders following his “mysterious” bid to “humiliate” the PCC chief by inducting him into the Cabinet as minor Minister by denying him any senior position with the help of the Muslim league and the Kerala Congress (M).
“That is perhaps the only reason why Sonia Gandhi refused to give audience to Chandy when he desperately wanted to meet her on Friday after Chennithala informed the media that she had endorsed his plea not to compel him to join the Cabinet and to continue as PCC chief at least till the lok Sabha election,” said an AICC source.
“Chandy’s game to humiliate Ramesh was two-pronged,” said a top ‘I’ group leader. “His argument before Sonia was that he wanted Chennithala to join the Cabinet in order to refurbish its image now standing tainted because of the solar scam but the main UDF partners were against making him Deputy CM. It was not difficult for Sonia to see through him,” he said.
After the meeting with Sonia Gandhi on Friday, Chennithala told mediapersons that he did not want to be a Minister as a result of bargains with front partners, making it amply clear that how Chandy had been planning to use the Muslim league and KC(M) to humiliate him by forcing Sonia to ask him to join the Cabinet as a minor Minister.
The front partners argued they had not blocked Chennithala’s chance of becoming Deputy CM in any way. The league even went to the extent of asking the Congress why it could not settle the matter by giving Chennithala the Home portfolio, which was now in the custody of the Congress. They warned that it would be impossible for them to continue in the front in this context.
Rumours are that Chandy is afraid of taking the Home portfolio away from Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan who is said to be in possession of computer pen drives and laptops confiscated from scam perpetrator Saritha S Nair and other fraudsters that could prove the alleged involvement of Chandy and people close to him in the scam.