Congress president Sonia Gandhi will arrive in Kerala on a two-day visit on September 29 with the mission of putting an end to the rampant faction war in the party even as Rahul Gandhi has received a situation report that the party and the ruling UDF it is leading, may face a humiliating defeat in the next lok Sabha elections in the State.
Though the official word is that Sonia is visiting Kerala to inaugurate the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Development Studies set up by the State Congress unit at Neyyar, some 25 km away from Thiruvananthapuram, her main task would be to bring the warring ‘I’ group led by State party president Ramesh Chennithala and the ‘A’ group of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy to peace.
Sonia is visiting Kerala at a time when Congress leaders themselves are admitting that the party and the UDF Government it is heading are going in two different directions. The party president is expected to hold detailed discussions with Chandy, Chennithala and other senior leaders to establish peace between the two groups.
Groupism in the Congress had reached the level of an open war following Chandy’s failure to induct Chennithala into his Cabinet by giving him the position of Deputy Chief Minister or Home Minister and the infamous solar scam in which the Chief Minister and many ‘A’ group leaders and Ministers are accused of involvement.
The faction war in the State Congress unit had worsened to such levels that at one stage Chennithala had told a newspaper in an interview that the Chief Minister can go his way and I will go mine. Almost all coalition partners have publicly expressed unhappiness over the group war in Congress.
Congress sources said that Sonia Gandhi might also hold discussions with leaders of major coalition partners Muslim league and Kerala Congress (M), who had demanded the Congress high command’s intervention in the group war which had been causing serious problems to the State administration.
Even senior Congress leaders like former State president K Muraleedharan had said that the UDF might not get even a single seat in the lok Sabha election if it went to the polls without solving the problems in the party and the UDF. However, there are skeptics in the party who say that Chandy-Chennithala war is so intense that even Sonia’s bid to end it may not bear fruit.
Sonia’s visit to Kerala on September 29 assumes added significance as Gujarat Chief Minister and NDA’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is visiting the State on September 26 to take part in the 60th birthday celebrations of spiritual leader Mata Amritandamayi at the Amritapuri Ashram in Vallikkavu, Kollam.
Meanwhile, a team appointed by Rahul Gandhi to assess the prospects of the Congress and its allies in the coming lok Sabha election in the southern States has reported to the AICC that the party-led UDF in Kerala could face a humiliating defeat in the current situation. In the 2009 election, the Congress had won 13 and the allies three out of the total 20 seats in Kerala.
As per the report of the team comprising some of Rahul Gandhi’s trusted men, the UDF may not win more than eight seats in the next election in the State while the party may improve its position in the other South Indian States, a claim observers tend to dispute. Rahul’s team had reportedly done the survey in Kerala a month back.
The report, compiled after assessing the ground situation in all the 20 constituencies, says that the allies may retain their seats while it would be difficult for the sitting MPs of the Congress to win again if they are given tickets.
Apart from group wars, the factors that may affect the party’s poll prospects are the unprecedented rise in prices of essential commodities, the lingering suspicions among the people over the solar scam, the media’s antagonistic attitude to the party and the UDF regime and the unhappiness among several communities, according to the report.