The efforts of the Congress high command to bring some unity to the groupism-riddled party in Kerala by reshuffling the party’s contingent in the UDF Cabinet have caused fresh problems for it with opposing factions refusing to agree to the terms of ceasefire, allies turning unhappy over loss of positions and dissatisfaction among community outfits.
Amidst this confusion, State Congress president Ramesh Chennithala – also leader of the ‘I’ group in the party – will be sworn in Minister in the Oommen Chandy Cabinet on Wednesday morning as instructed by the party high command. Chennithala will be given Home portfolio and he will be the second-in-command.
What the Congress leadership considered as an inevitable step for establishing peace in the party and thereby putting an end to the complaints of the UDF allies created fresh problems with the ‘A’ group led by Chief Minister Chandy objecting to the removal of Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan from the Cabinet for accommodating Chennithala.
“With Chennithala getting Home, the balance of group power in the Cabinet will be tipped as ‘I’ group’s Adoor Prakash is now holding an important portfolio, Revenue. We cannot allow the ‘I’ group to hold all the major portfolios. I may have differences of opinion with Thiruvanchoor but we can’t allow his removal at this juncture,” said a senior ‘A” group leader close to Chandy.
Under pressure, the party came to an in-principle decision to retain him by allocating some other “significant” portfolio. Thiruvanchoor was in charge of Revenue before he was made Home Minister in April, 2012. Sources in the ‘I’ group said they would not allow the Chief Minister to give Revenue to Thiruvanchoor.
The Chief Minister himself confirmed on Tuesday that Thiruvanchoor would be retained in the Cabinet. The next hurdle before the Congress is the filling of the post of State party president, which would now be vacated by Chennithala. Different factions in the party have proposed the names of different leaders for the position.
At the same time, the UDF leadership complicated the situation further on Tuesday by informing former minister R Balakrishnan Pillai, chairman of front partner Kerala Congress (B), that his son KB Ganesh Kumar MlA, who had resigned as Forest minister in April last, could not be re-inducted into the Cabinet as was promised earlier. This infuriated Pillai.
“I have known from my experience that Chief Minister Chandy is a person who does not tell truth or keep his word,” fumed Pillai. “Ganesh had resigned because of a legal dispute in the family and that is over. The understanding was that he would be taken back once his problem with his wife was settled. We will be forced to take some tough stands now,” he said.
The Kerala Congress (B) has only one MlA but the Congress or the UDF cannot afford to enrage Pillai because the Government is surviving on a wafer thin majority as the UDF has only 73 members in the 140-member State Assembly. However, major UDF constituents Muslim league and Kerala Congress (M) welcomed the decision to make Chennithala Minister.
The move to take away the Revenue portfolio from Adoor Prakash, a Hindu lower caste Ezhava, for giving it back to Thiruvanchoor, a Hindu upper caste Nair, enraged the SNDP Yogam, the outfit of Ezhavas who form 25 percent of the State’s population. “It will cause setback to the Congress and UDF (in the lok Sabha polls), said SNDP general secretary Vellappally Natesan.
The decision to make Chennithala, a Nair, the Home Minister and to retain Thiruvanchoor in the Cabinet did not satisfy the Nairs’ organization NSS either. Thiruvanchoor was shifted from Revenue to Home in 2012 mainly to appease the NSS, which had always wanted a Nair to hold a “key position” in the Cabinet. Nairs constitute 16 percent of the State’s total population.