Will Kerala Cong survive group pressure from veterans in selection of new office bearers?

As the Congress in Kerala is in the final stages of announcing its new office bearers of the party district units, the curious question doing the rounds is whether the new state leadership will be able to survive group pressure by veteran leaders.

Groupism in selection of office bearers and candidates was considered to be the major reason for Congress to become weak in Kerala leading to defeat in the Assembly elections for two consecutive time.

Party veterans like Oommen Chandy and Ramesh Chennithala, who are considered as the leaders of the two prominent groups in the party, were learnt to have expressed their resentment over not being given due involvement in the discussions on selection of the new office bearers.

Following the setback in the Assembly elections, the party national leadership made V D Satheesan the leader of opposition replacing Chennithala. Subsequently, Mullappaly Ramachandran was replaced with K Sudhakaran as Kerala PCC president.

The first priority of the new leadership was to revamp the party with giving due weightage to merit than group affiliations. The party state leadership was having a 'jumbo' committee of 12 vice presidents, 42 general secretaries and around 100 secretaries, which was mainly to accommodate all loyal to party group leaders. But the new state leadership decided to reduce it to a 51 member committee at the state level and all district committees are being reconstituted. The selection of district committee president is now progressing.

Party sources said that though the new leadership had made the screening based on suggestion received from the veteran leaders, the veteran leaders were quite upset as they were not consulted while the state leadership finalised its proposal sent to the party high command. It was also learnt that the veteran leaders conveyed their resentment to the national leadership.

The ball is now in the high command's court and it might be going by the advice of AICC general secretary in charge of Kerala Tariq Anwar. The veteran leaders were already unhappy over the induction of the new state president and opposition leader without taking them into confidence. Hence the national leadership may be also taking steps cautiously without hurting the veterans.