The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee finds itself between a deep sea and devil syndrome. Following the disastrous performance of the party in the recent Assembly election, the reigning KPCC chief M Ramachandran has expressed his desire to quit. The decision has been hastened by the appointment of V D Satheeshan as the Leader of the Opposition in place of Ramesh Chennithala was was ousted from that post.
Though a team of AICC observers led by Mallikarjun Kharge who were deputed by party president Sonia Gandhi held many rounds of talks with the new legislators and the former chiefs of the KPCC, a solution remains elusive. A number of leaders have pitched in for the coveted post and this include Kodikkunnil Suresh, Sashi Tharoor (both former union Ministers), K Muraleedharan, Benny Behannan, K Sudhakaran (all MPs) ,P T Thomas MLA and K C Joseph, former Minister.
The information trickling out of Indira Bhavan (KPCC headquarters) at Thiruvananthapuram is that former Chief Minister Oommen Chandi and Ramesh CVhennithala are cut up with the move by the High Command to bring in a new leader as the party chief. K Sudhakaran, popularly known as Kerala Simham (Malayalam for Lion), and has proved his organisational skills is the preferred leader of the new generation of Congressmen though he is 70.
But Oommen Chandi and Ramesh are totally opposed to Sudhakaran becoming the KPCC president .”Both of them have made it known that they would not accept any organisational responsibilities if the High Command appoints Sudhakaran,” said a former leader of the KPCC.
Tariq Anwar, the special representative of Sonia Gandhi is in the capital city to know the pulse of the other leaders. Though Anwar held a series of meetings with all the leaders who matter in the KPCC, the name of the new chief remains a mystery.
“The person who is appointed as the KPCC president by the Congress High Command would command all support from all sections. There is no confusion in it,” Chandy told reporters at Kottayam. The incoming KPCC president would have to lift the party from the abyss of defeat as the Congress has lost two successive elections to the assembly, something unheard of in the last four decades.