Congress trims its Kerala unit by half

Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 22 With the Congress trimming the office-bearers list in its Kerala unit by nearly half from over 100 to 51, an uneasy calm prevailed in the party offices in the state.

The much-awaited list announced on Thursday night to revitalise the organisation dampened the spirits of many, and those who secured the posts included the aides of several top leaders.

The list has been trimmed heavily and now includes four Vice-presidents (instead of 12), 23 general secretaries (previously 42) and a 28-member executive committee.

The first sound of discontentment was raised by Lok Sabha member and son of K. Karunakaran K. Muraleedharan, who said discussions did not take place which was evident from the list.

"Since discipline has to be maintained and is applicable to me also, I am not speaking much. Had discussions taken place by taking into confidence the previous state presidents, the list could have been better and hence I am neither supporting nor discarding the list," said Muraleedharan.

Veteran Congress legislator Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan said the list has come and now everyone has to accept it as that is the practice.

"It will be good for the party if we all see it on a positive note," he said.

Among those who have been dropped include A.V. Gopinath and K. Sivadasan Nair, both former legislators. Despite strong backing, these leaders failed to make it to the list.

Meanwhile, sources in the know of things said that with the Assembly to resume its session from Monday, in the best interest of all, any fireworks or washing dirty linen in public at this time, would bring disrepute to the party.

Incidentally, this is perhaps the first time, when the party high command had the upper hand in finalising the list as hitherto it was managed by the faction leaders in the state unit and the high command used to approve the list with only minor changes.

Ever since K. Sudhakaran was brought in as the new state party president and V.D. Satheesan the new Leader of Opposition, much against the wishes of the top faction managers Oommen Chandy and Ramesh Chennithala, the high command took over the control.

Sudhakaran, putting up a brave face said it was natural for differences of opinion to surface.

"There is no upheaval at all in the party after the list has come. Once I return to the state capital, I will again call on all the top leaders. Look, when the list is trimmed, it is natural, there will be differences of opinion," said Sudhakaran.

Joining the high command in finalising things was General Secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal, who seemed to have an iron grip over the Kerala affairs and from the list of new office-bearers, nine of them are his close aides, while Chandy has seven of his confidants and Chennithala four.