Amid the simmering dissension in the Kerala Congress unit over the selection of district Congress committee (DCC) chiefs by the new leadership, party general secretary Tariq Anwar will arrive in the state next week to placate sulking senior leaders Oommen Chandy and Ramesh Chennithala.
A party leader, who did not want to be named, said Anwar will reach the state capital on September 8 to talk to the two senior leaders.
Amid the growing differences, Chandy said on Saturday that he is ready to talk to anyone to settle the present crisis. He said in Kottayam that lack of proper discussion before finalising the district office-bearers’ list led to the present stalemate and it can be settled if someone takes the lead. “There are no big issues as portrayed and they can be settled through talks,” Chandy said.
The party leader mentioned above said Anwar’s visit comes in the wake of several complaints to Congress president Sonia Gandhi alleging that the new leadership was enforcing discipline without meeting party guidelines and that it will further drain the party. Two days back while inaugurating the new party office in Kannur virtually, party leader Rahul Gandhi, also a member of parliament from Kerala, reminded the state leadership about the “spirit of collective leadership.”
Meanwhile, PCC secretary P S Prashant, who was expelled last week, joined the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Friday. Desperate to widen its base, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is also eying some of the disgruntled Congress leaders. “So the party is desperate to check further damage and is rushing the general secretary,” the senior Congress leader said.
State Congress president K Sudhakaran expressed confidence that everything will be settled soon, but insisted that discipline is paramount. He took a dig at the CPI(M), saying “it turned a waste bin” by accepting those thrown out by the Congress.
Chennithala gave a clear message on Friday that he is not ready for a truce. “When I and Chandy led the party, we never used the language of arrogance. We led the party for 17 years and we notched up many victories. A good leadership will have to take everyone along. If the track record of those enforcing discipline is examined, they would not have been in the party by now,” Chennithala said, taking a dig at Sudhakaran. Another leader, K C Joseph, also said disciplinary action was selective and taken in a hurry.
The DCC list that was announced on August 28 triggered public outbursts by Congress leaders. Two senior leaders K Sivadasan Nair and KP Anil Kumar were suspended and PCC secretary Prashant was expelled. Another senior leader, A V Gopinathan, quit the party. Chandy and Chennithala publicly expressed their differences with the new leadership of the state unit.
