Giving clear indications that peace might not dawn in Kerala's groupism-riddled Congress party soon despite the High Command’s determined interventions, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Tuesday stayed away from the programme organised in Thiruvananthapuram to formally install senior leader VM Sudheeran as the new State Congress president.
Almost all senior leaders of the Congress and even those of its allies in the ruling UDF were present at Indira Bhavan, the State party headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram, when outgoing State party chief Ramesh Chennithala, the Home Minister, handed over charge to Sudheeran, who was on Monday appointed in the position by the High Command. Chandy was at the Chief Minister's office in the State Secretariat, within a radius of just two kilometres from Indira Bhavan, when the meeting was taking place but he chose not to drop in on the excuse that he was busy in official conferences.
However, group-neutral leaders in the party took his absence as a sign of his firm objection to the high command's decision. The Congress High Command had appointed Sudheeran, known as a clean politician without any role in the faction wars of the Kerala party, rejecting the joint proposal of Chandy leading the 'A' group in it and Chennithala heading the 'I' group to select Assembly Speaker G Karthikeyan as PCC chief. Also, both of them had vehemently opposed the proposal to appoint Sudheeran.
Coming to know of Sudheeran’s appointment after the visual media broke the news on Monday, Chandy had limited his response to “every Congressman is duty-bound to accept any decision the high command takes” instead of congratulating him. However, Chennithala did congratulate Sudheeran though not all that warmly.
On Tuesday, Chandy, who had earlier refused to say anything on his "boycott", visited Sudheeran well after the programme at Indira Bhavan was over. Sudheeran, however, tried to hide the embarrassment with the explanation that Chandy had told him earlier that he might not attend the programme as he would be busy with “a string of official conferences”.
Addressing the gathering at Indira Bhavan after assuming office as the new PCC chief, Sudheeran took an indirect dig at the Chief Minister by saying that administration should be carried out by taking people into confidence. Sudheeran is an opponent of almost all pro-rich policies and programmes the Chandy Government has adopted so far.
At his first Press conference as State Congress chief, he said his first priority would be to ensure that the Congress was battle-ready for the next lok Sabha polls. “My first big programme will be a special convention to be addressed by party chief Sonia Gandhi on Saturday. That will mark the start of our lok Sabha campaign,” he said.