A day after the announcement of the results of the election held to the local bodies in Kerala, the factional fight in the Congress party has come out in the open. Thursday saw the entire Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee head quarters at Thiruvananthapuram plastered with printed posters alleging massive scale favoritism and groupism in selection of party candidates for the local body polls by the Congress leadership.
While the printed posters carried highly critical allegations against the KPCC leadership and asked for its restructuring, it also featured names of senior party leaders who handpicked their “concubines”, “girl friends” and “lovers” overlooking the claims of party’s long time activists and workers. Names of leaders includes that of former ministers, MPs, MLAs and State level office bearers. The posters were tore down by the KPCC staff within minutes of the media teams reaching the spot.
But veteran party leaders like K Sudhakaran MP , Ajay Tharayil and former depurty chairman of Rajya Sabha P J Kurian came out in the open lambasting the party leaders in the selection of candidates.
“There was a situation favorable to the UDF as a result of the dilemma faced by the CPI(M) that was facing multiple charges of corruption and scams. But the Congress leadership failed to exploit the situation,” said Sudhakaran. He said he was not interested in continuing as the working president of the KPCC as the leadership has lost the sense of collective responsibility.
Group owing allegiance to K Muraleedharan MP, son of late K Karunakaran, launched a campaign demanding the appointment of the former as the KPCC chief. But P J Kurian has another story to tell.
“The minorities, especially the Christian community in the State is keeping away from the party as a fall out of unhappiness in the selection of candidates and the failure of the party leadership to take them into confidence,” said Kurian.
Adding to the woes of the KPCC leadership, P k Kunhalikutty MP and leader of the Muslim League and Shibu Baby John of the RSP (both constituents of the UDF) too blamed the Congress for the lackluster performance of the UDF.
“Both the LDF and UDF had alliances with parties like Welfare Party of India and Jama-at-E Islami in past elections. But this time we saw the Congress leaders themselves washing dirty linen in public over the alliance. This could have been avoided,” said John.
Meanwhile the CPI(M) managed to cobble up majority in the Kochi and Thrissur Corporation councils with the help of dissident Muslim League and Congress candidates who scored “shock wins” over official candidates.