Congress does damage control as Wayanad leaders quit

The unrest in Congress camps of Wayanad was due to the selection of candidates for the upcoming Assembly polls

One of the four local Congress leaders in Wayanad who quit in the past few days, returned to the party after the Kerala party leadership launched a damage control exercise. The grand old party is also relieved as one local CPM leader also joined the party.

K K Viswanathan, a senior district leader of the party, revoked his plan to leave Congress. Kerala PCC secretary M S Viswanathan, District Congress Committee general secretary P K Anil Kumar and Mahila Congress leader Sujaya Venugopal are the other prominent local leaders who quit the party.

The unrest in Congress camps of Wayanad due to the selection of candidates for the upcoming Assembly polls is especially embarrassing for the party as Rahul Gandhi represents the constituency in Lok Sabha.

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Following the deliberations initiated by senior Congress leaders, Viswanathan withdrew his resignation. He is likely to be fielded by the party in one of the three Assembly seats in the district. He said that there were some misunderstandings that were now cleared.

Resentment towards the party district leadership was said to be the key reason for the four resignations.

Meanwhile, a local leader of CPM E A Sankaran joined the Congress camps. Sankaran who is a tribal community leader alleged that the left-front government was betraying the tribal community and more CPM supporters from the tribal communities would join Congress soon.