Even as protests by party leaders and workers are continuing to rock Kerala’s groupism-riddled Congress over the ‘arbitrary gifting’ by the top State leadership of its Rajya Sabha seat – being vacated by PJ Kurien – to the Kerala Congress (M), demand has intensified in the party for change in the leadership.
At least two young MlAs of the Congress party on Saturday called for a change in the leadership in the context of the decision of the three top leaders to gift the Rajya Sabha seat to the KC(M) of bar bribery-accused former minister KM Mani, when it was not a constituent of the party-led UDF, for which no convincing explanation has been given yet.
“The Congress in Kerala deserves a better leadership,” said VT Balram, party MlA from Thrithala even as Congress president Rahul Gandhi reportedly observed that the Kerala leaders’ decision on the RS seat was wrong and sought a report from Mukul Wasnik, the general secretary in charge of Kerala affairs, on the ground for allotting the seat to the KC(M).
leaders in the State party also expressed unhappiness at the way Wasnik had handled the matter. According to them, Wasnik had failed in convincing the party chief about the actual situation despite the fact that he was well aware of the state of affairs in the factionalism-ridden Kerala unit dominated by the group bosses and their managers.
The decision to allot the RS seat to Mani’s party, which will now go to his son and lok Sabha member Jose K Mani, was taken on Thursday by the leadership trinity comprising former chief minister Oommen Chandy, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala (bosses of the party’s ‘A’ and ‘I’ groups respectively), and acting PCC chief MM Hassan, known as an ‘A’ group manager.
The decision shocked the entire State Congress and top group-neutral leaders including former PCC chief VM Sudheeran had openly attacked Chandy and Chennithala for it. Sudheeran, who on Friday walked out of a UDF meet held for announcing the allotment of the seat to the KC(M), on Saturday even went to the extent terming the decision as mysterious.
“A leadership which thinks with foresight, which is capable of understanding the sentiments of the party workers, which knows how to articulate the politics of the times and which is sincerely concerned about the future of the Congress and Kerala’s secularism instead of power and positions is an inevitability of the time,” Balram wrote in his Facebook page.
“When a decision taken by two group leaders without consulting anyone else and when that decision becomes an official decision of the Congress, that is extremely undemocratic,” said Balram while Anil Akkara, young MlA from Wadakanchery known for his close connections with Chandy, wanted the allegedly inefficient leadership to step aside.
On Saturday, Hassan tried to justify the decision to allot the Rajya Sabha seat to the KC(M), which had quit the UDF without citing a valid reason in August, 2016 and returned to it on Friday following the Congress decision, by saying that this was necessary for strengthening the UDF “though the leadership is not very happy about it”.
Stating that the KC(M) was allotted the RS seat in order to bring it back to the UDF, Hassan said, “The leadership opted to make this compromise for averting a possible setback in the next general election. We understand the sentiments of the protesting party workers. But we had acted in the interests of the party and the UDF.”
Hassan’s justification came in the context of the failure of the efforts made on Friday by Chandy and Chennithala to convince the leaders and workers about the necessity of the decision. Hassan also issued a veiled warning to the protestors by saying, “Protests should not cross the limits. That would do no good to the party.”
The protests have assumed such a big magnitude that unidentified protestors on Saturday morning placed a coffin with pictures of Chandy and Chennithala on it at the gates of the Ernakulam District Congress Committee office in Kochi. Posters found nearby read, “You leaders are already dead in the party workers’ hearts”.