Opposing camps in Kerala’s Congress party led by State president VM Sudheeran and Chief Minister Oommen Chandy have agreed to end their open war and to move forward in “total unity” while granting each other the right to keep disagreements intact on contentious issues like the dilution by the Government of its own liquor policy.
“A decision has been taken to bring in more effective coordination between the party and the Government even when disagreements exist,” said Sudheeran in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday while briefing newsmen on the decisions of a meeting of the Congress-Government coordination committee held on Tuesday night. It is yet to be seen whether this pact will effectively end the war that had been going on publicly between Sudheeran and Chandy and his supporters since December 18, the day the Chief Minister announced a drastic dilution of the liquor policy he himself had formulated and to popularize which the PCC chief had undertaken a 35-day Kerala tour, the Janapaksha Yatra.
While Chandy was trying to justify the changes he had brought to the liquor policy, which had originally envisaged total booze ban in ten years, citing “practicality”, Sudheeran alleged that the watering down of the liquor policy by allowing 418 closed bars to run wine-and-beer parlours meant that the Government was in the clutches of the liquor lobby. The standoff had pushed the Congress and the Government headed by it into a deep crisis. Sudheeran alleged that the change in the policy had undermined the possibilities of the party and the UDF it led returning to power in the 2016 Assembly election while Chandy’s camp said Sudheeran’s attacks against Chandy would affect the poll prospects.
“There is no question of the party going back on its declared pro-Prohibition position. The Government’s (earlier) decision to ban liquor in all the 730 bars was a great step. But the KPCC has informed the Government of its objection to giving beer-wine parlour licences to 418 bars. There is no change in this stand but we have agreed to move ahead in unity,” Sudheeran said. A senior journalist of a pro-Congress newspaper said he did not expect the war in the party to end with the ceasefire agreement of Tuesday. “The war has gone too far. Instead of solving the problems through discussions they are trying to suppress the differences. It will only lead to a worse kind of explosion in the future. We have seen it happening in the Congress often,” he said. Sources said that the six-hour-long meeting of the coordination committee had witnessed furious exchanges between Sudheeran and those who opposed him. The PCC chief accused Chandy of betraying him by watering down the liquor policy after the conclusion of his Janapaksha Yatra during which he had tried to popularize the no-booze policy across the State, sources said.
Sudheeran’s critics like State vice-presidents VD Satheesan and MM Hassan accused him of putting the party-led Government in the dock over the liquor policy issue with his open attacks. At one point of time, Satheesan even expressed his willingness to resign after Sudheeran reminded him that he had become vice-president on his recommendation, sources said. “There is no going back on positions. The decision is to go ahead in unity even while sticking to the positions already taken,” Sudheeran told newsmen. However, he refused to give a direct reply when asked whether he still believed that the Government was in the grip of the liquor lobby. “Whatever is to be said has already been said,” he said.