The Congress leadership in north Kerala, especially Kozhikode district, has something to cheer following the reconstitution of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC).
The elevation of District Congress Committee (DCC) president T. Siddique to the post of vice president and secretaries P.M. Niyas and K. Praveen Kumar to the post of general secretaries showed that the high command has placed its bet on this young team to revive the party in Kozhikode.
They have been chosen not only for owing allegiance to either of the groups led by Ramesh Chennithala, Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, or former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, but also for their work during the Lok Sabha elections last year. It is also for the first time that a district leader has been selected to be the post of vice president.
Earlier, Mr. Siddique, who had relinquished his candidature for former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi to contest from the Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, was nominated as one of the six working presidents.
This was also after considering his performance of putting the beleaguered party back on the track after a long time.
Despite lobbying from the ‘I’ and ‘A’ groups, the post of working president has been completely rejected.
Also, the AICC has retained one of its general secretaries, N. Subramanian, and removed another, P.M. Suresh Babu, for different reasons. Currently, Mr. Niyas and Mr. Babu are councillors of the Kozhikode Corporation.
North Kerala also gets another vice president, K.C. Rosakutty from Wayanad district while K. Sudhakaran ( Kannur), V.A. Kareem (Malappuram) C.P. Muhammed, and C. Chandran (Palakkad) have been appointed general secretaries.
However, Kasaragod district has not got its due in the KPCC list. Possibly, the leaders believe that it would be given preference when all the office-bearers including secretaries and executive committee members are finalised by February 10.
However, the Congress high command will face another problem of choosing the right candidate to helm the Kozhikode DCC following Mr. Siddique’s appointment as vice president.
The new DCC president has a bigger role to galvanise the rank and file of the party for the coming three-tier local body polls this year.
Incidentally, the Congress has not had any representation from Kozhikode district in the State Assembly since 2006. Now, several names - K.M. Ummer, U. Rajeevan and V.M. Chandran - are doing the rounds for the DCC president’s post.
