Driven by its current organisational kinetics, especially after the debacle of the party in the local body polls, the Congress central leadership has decided to put its foot down on fancy aspirations of its Lok Sabha representatives from entering the fray in the coming Assembly polls in Kerala.
Of the many reasons why senior functionaries wanted to stringently adopt this policy was that the party would find the going tough to retain the Lok Sabha seats it had handsomely won in the 2019 polls..
Rumours were rife that a few MPs — K. Sudhakaran, Benny Behanan, and Adoor Prakash — were eyeing Assembly tickets after the IUML decided to field its leader P.K. Kunhalikuttty, MP, for the Assembly polls.
Such a political harmonisation of legislators contesting Parliament elections was necessitated after the Congress was at the receiving end of the backlash in the polls held in other States. Now a similar experiment would not be viable when a new matrix of nervousness and erosion of its vote-base has gripped the party.
With the Congress high command nixing the scheming of some leaders, the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee can now accommodate the aspirations of the middle -rung and youth leaders. That does not mean the party would be firmly immune to the electoral challenges ahead when the leadership would have to deal with the factional politics at play during the run-up to the elections. Besides, party sources said such a decision would also offer the possibilities of office-bearers, including KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran, standing for the elections.
Further, the Congress would contest more seats following the exit of the Loktantrik Janata Dal and the Jose K. Mani faction from the UDF. The high command has taken a categorical stand not to concede the vacant seats to the IUML after a calculus of fear stuck the Hindu community following its overt and covert electoral understanding with the Welfare Party of India.
