Kerala’s Congress party leadership is now left with the sole responsibility of finding an end to the intense war between the factions led by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and State party chief Ramesh Chennithala over the issue of induction of the latter into the State Cabinet with party president Sonia Gandhi remaining unable to propose a clear ceasefire formula.
Chandy met Sonia and Madhusudan Mistry, party general secretary in-charge of Kerala affairs, on Monday in search of some way to end the standstill but all he could tell newsmen after the meetings was that a solution would be found in Kerala as that was where the problem originated. “I have told them about the Kerala affairs. Now I will take their opinion back to Kerala,” he said.
Though no clear decision had come out of the meetings, the High Command expressed its unwillingness to endorse the idea of making Chennithala the Deputy Chief Minister, according to sources. “This is because the High Command doesn’t want two power centres in the same Government,” said a Delhi-based senior Congress leader.
It is now up to Chandy himself to take a decision in consultation with Chennithala and others concerned on what portfolio should be allocated to him while inducting him into the Cabinet. But the Congress’s ‘I’ group led by Chennithala is ready for no compromise if he does not get the Home portfolio, a demand Chandy and his ‘A’ group does not want to agree to.
Making obvious the ‘I’ group’s anger over the refusal of the high command to the demand of the Dy CM’s post for Chennithala, MP K Sudhakaran, its second-in-command said, “We were sure earlier itself that he was not going to get that position. It is the responsibility of the Chief Minister to discuss the issue with him and give him a suitable post in the Cabinet.”
At the same time, several ‘I’ group leaders feel that Chandy had not taken up with the high command the matter of making Chennithala the Deputy CM in the required manner. They are of the opinion that the ‘A” group has adopted a
strategy of delaying a solution to the problem so that Chandy could push Chennithala into accepting some “humiliating proposal” eventually.
Sources said that the high command was of the position that a solution to the problem should be found in Kerala itself because it did not want to create an impression that it was imposing decisions from above. Chandy would now have to go back to Sonia with whatever decision the leadership in Kerala would be able to take, said a source.
Observers say that the standoff in Kerala’s Congress could turn into an open war if Chandy and others are unable to settle the issue within the next couple of days. “The ‘I’ group would wait for two more days and after that they could take the war into the public domain though the high command has banned public statements by leaders,” said a senior journalist.
The ‘I” group has made it clear that it is not ready to agree to any proposal if Chennithala is not given the post of Deputy CM or the Home portfolio. It thinks that any post other than these two would push him to the third position in hierarchy in the Government. “There’s no question of accepting anything less than the second position,” said a close aid of Chennithala.
The Home portfolio is presently held by a prominent ‘A’ group leader, Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan. The ‘A’ group feels that it would not be in the interest of the party to take away that portfolio from Thiruvanchoor, who was appointed in that post as part of a strategy to pacify majority community outfits which were accusing the Government of being pro-minorities.