Another ‘son rise’ party in Kerala in turmoil

Kerala recently witnessed a prominent regional party, the Kerala Congress (M), facing major setbacks including a split and defeat in by-election owing to the power tussle between the party founder-leader’s son and veteran leaders

Now, another regional party in Kerala — the Kerala Congress (Jacob) — is going through a similar turmoil.

Factions in the KC(J) led by party founder-leader T M Jacob’s son Anoop Jacob and current party chairman and veteran leader Johnny Nellore have parted ways.

With both the parties being constituents of the Congress-led UDF, grand old party’s leadership in Kerala is more worried about the in-fights in the regional parties.

The Kerala Congress (M) lost the Pala Assembly seat, which was held by party founder K M Mani for 54 years till his death last year, in the recent by-elections there owing to the in-fights.

The Congress, which sits in the Opposition benches of the Kerala Assembly, is concerned that the in-fights in the coalition parties would cast a shadow over its prospects in another ensuing Assembly bypoll to the Kuttanad seat in Alappuzha district.

Congress senior leader and former chief minister Oommen Chandy said that attempts were being made to sort out the differences and ensure that all Kerala Congress factions stood united.

Reason for tussle

While the split in KC (M) was between K M Mani’s son Jose K Mani, who is a Rajya Sabha MP, and veteran leader P J Joseph over the party chairman’s post; the ongoing tussle in
KC (J) is due to differences over the decision to merge the party with another regional one.

While the Nellore faction wanted to merge with the KC (M), the faction led by P J Joseph and Jacob’s son Anoop was opposed to it.

Nellore alleged that Anoop, who became a minister in Kerala after his father’s death in 2011, did not favour the merger as the latter feared that he would not get any plump post.

In both KC (M) and KC (J), a large section of party leaders and workers are unhappy with sons of founder-leaders emerging as top leaders bypassing seniority and contributions made by other seniors— a section of the KC(M) had even left the party earlier citing this as the reason.