Southern States - Tamil Nadu   

Beleaguered Chennithala leaves it to Sonia

By Our Special Correspondent

Ramesh Chennithala, AICC secretary, addressing Congress MLAs at the Sathyamurthy Bhavan in Chennai on Tuesday. — Photo: K. V. Srinivasan

Chennai Oct. 22. With just a day left for the State Assembly session to begin, Congress MLAs, who met today, failed to elect their floor leader and left the ``choice'' to the party president, Sonia Gandhi.

``Two or three MLAs are being considered. The president will announce the legislature group leader tomorrow,'' the AICC secretary-in-charge of Tamil Nadu, Ramesh Chennithala, said, after hearing out the 25 MLAs at the Sathyamurthy Bhavan here.

With each faction coming up with a candidate, Mr. Chennithala, after two hours of deliberations, decided to leave it to Ms. Gandhi to announce the ``consensus'' choice.

As the Speaker, K. Kalimuthu, permitted 18 TMC MLAs to function as Congress members, the party strength in the Assembly has gone up to 25. And as expected, the erstwhile TMC camp, which holds a majority in the legislature group, ``unitedly'' projected the former floor leader, S. R. Balasubramaniam, as its candidate. Though a few erstwhile TMC MLAs were opposed to his donning the mantle, the AICC secretary, G. K. Vasan, summoned them in the morning and asked them to support him. ``We were asked to support Mr. Balasubramaniam. Hence, we collectively backed his candidature,'' said a senior MLA.

However, a majority of the seven ``original'' Congress MLAs backed by the TNCC working president, E. V. K. S. Elangovan, and former MP. R. Prabhu, pushed for the Udhagamandalam MLA, H. M. Raju. They forcefully asked Mr.Chennithala not to slight the ``original Congressmen'' by offering all posts to the ``TMC camp''.

The third candidate, of course, was the incumbent Congress floor leader, D. Yasodha. Though none came forward to support her, Ms. Yasodha fought her case on her own.

Battered by claims and counter-claims, Mr.Chennithala informed the MLAs that the high command would take a decision.

But, indications are the ``high command'' will favour Mr. Balasubramaniam for CLP leadership, Mr. Raju for deputy leadership and the Vellore MLA, C. Gnanasekaran, for party whip.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Southern States

News: Front Page | National | Southern States | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary |

Stories in this Section

• ESMA will be invoked, warns Govt.
• All set for stormy Assembly session
• Beleaguered Chennithala leaves it to Sonia
• Govt. to blame: employees
• Govt. bound to pre-empt minority schools closure: PIL
• 11 killed in cracker unit fire in Villupuram dt.
• Netherlands team to kick-start Tirupur scheme
• Pension problem won't retire that easily
• Good response to Samadhan scheme
• TNCC leaders' appeal to Krishna
• Minorities flay unrelenting stand
• Declare strike illegal: petition
• Prevail upon Krishna: Thirunavukkarasar tells Cong. president

Copyright © 2002, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu