The reconstitution of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) and the District Congress Committees (DCCs) will have to await the clearance of the Congress high command before its formal announcement, but Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and KPCC president Ramesh Chennithala claimed that a broad understanding had been reached on the nominees for KPCC office-bearers and DCC presidents.
Mr. Chennithala told The Hindu from New Delhi that the All India Congress Committee (AICC) will process the list submitted by the Kerala leaders and that he expected the announcement to be made in a week’s time. The two leaders, along with United Democratic Front (UDF) convener P.P. Thankachan, had arrived in New Delhi with a draft list of nominees. The final shape was given after an hour-long discussion with Union Minister for Defence and Congress Working Committee (CWC) member A K Antony late on Thursday.
According to Congress sources, there would two vice-presidents for the KPCC. A decision on the number of general secretaries would be taken only with the AICC clearance. But certain names such as Lathika Subhash, T. Siddique, Ajay Tharayil, Padmaja Venugopal, E.M. Agusthy, M. Murali and K P Kunhikannan are sure to find a slot as general secretary. M.M. Hassan, V.S. Vijayaraghavan and Thampanoor Ravi’s names have been slotted for the two posts of vice-president. A majority of the incumbent KPCC general secretaries have either become Members of Parliament or the legislature. Since the party has decided to implement its one-man-one-post norm, the Congress leadership would go in for an overhaul in the KPCC.
It had been earlier decided that the 14 posts of District Congress Committee presidents would be shared equally by the Chandy and Chennithala factions. Accordingly, the Chandy faction would get Kasaragod, Kozhikode, Malappuram, Kottayam, Idukki, Pathanamthitta and Kollam, while the Chennithala faction would get Kannur, Wayanad, Palakkad, Thrissur, Ernakulam, Alappuzha and Thiruvananthapuram. The posts of general secretaries would also be shared equally, but there would be slots for the supporters of Padmaja Venugopal, K Muraleedharan and Vayalar Ravi.
There would be no change in the incumbent DCC presidents in Palakkad (C.V. Balachandran), Ernakulam (V.J. Paulose), Idukki (Roy K. Paulose), Thrissur (V. Balaram), Kottayam (Tommy Kallani) and Pathanamthitta ( P. Mohanraj) since they were inducted in between as an ad hoc measure. Mr. V.J. Paulose gets an extended term in view of the ongoing construction of the Ernakulam DCC office.
The names of C.K. Sreedharan and K Neelakantan have been proposed for Kasaragod. The former is currently special prosecutor in the T.P. Chandrasekharan murder case. U. Rajeevan is tipped to take over Kozhikode. K Mohan Kumar, a former DCC president and currently UDF district convener, is most likely to get his job back in Thiruvananthapuram. He had to shed his DCC post to make way for V.S. Sivakumar, who later resigned after becoming a Minister. Malappuram would find a new incumbent in V.A. Kareem, while Wayanad would have K.L. Paulose as its new incumbent. In Kannur, which had been a bone of contention between the Chandy and Chennithala factions, K Sudhakaran’s nominee, K. Surendran would most probably adorn the DCC president’s post. In Alappuzha, the party leadership would plough for A.A. Shukkoor, a Chennithala supporter, while in Kollam, the Chandy faction might experiment with either Shanavas Khan or Mr. V. Satyaseelan, sources said.
