The Congress leaders, while pacing through the candidate selection process for Aruvikkara Assembly by-election, appear to have reckoned factional considerations also. Even though the late G. Karthikeyan preferred to plough a lonely furrow after the “Reformist” days were over, he had gravitated towards Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala in the last few years. It was Mr. Chennithala who actively campaigned for Karthikeyan’s induction as KPCC president, something that did not materialise. After his death, it was again Mr. Chennithala who actively campaigned for the candidature of M.T. Sulekha, Karthikeyan’s widow. When it became clear that Ms. Sulekha would not oblige, he prepared the ground to bring K.S. Sabarinath, the late Speaker’s son, into the fray.
The Chennithala faction, in fact, put a lot of pressure on the party leadership to give the ticket to Mr. Sabarinath. The faction had lost several prime positions in the last few months, according to sources. It had to give up the KPCC treasurer’s post to the rival faction. The new incumbent, Johnson Abraham, has wider acceptability as a leader with clean image. But the factional leaders had been lamenting that they have been losing ground in the new round of revamp being undertaken. The induction of Mr. Sabarinath into the electoral fray, it is expected, will address the issue for the time being.
Since the Aruvikkara election will be a litmus test for the Congress, all factions are expected to sink their differences and ensure the victory of the party candidate.
Fixing a desirable general knowledge level for professionals, especially doctors, seems to have become a challenging task for the Public Service Commission (PSC). While recruiting medical professionals for the State health service, the Commission would have to do a great balancing act to keep the government as well as the candidates in good humour. For, an overdose of general knowledge questions would invariably invite the wrath of the young doctors and if they fail to rise up to the expectations of the public, it would again be cited as a lapse of the Commission. When the Commission recently conducted an examination for selecting assistant surgeons, due thrust was given to general knowledge covering a wide range of topics, including history. Two of the questions were ‘In which year did Swami Vivekananda attend the Parliament of Religions at Chicago?’ and ‘Who among the social reformers first installed a mirror for worshipping in south India.’ While the candidates deem such questions as quite irrelevant, Commission sources say that the PSC is firm about its decision to bring in a greater element of GK into its tests.
Winning converts from the other side and parading them as trophies continue to be a favourite pastime of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kannur.
The latest was the CPI(M)’s display of its prize catch, someone whom they called a national level ‘pracharak’ of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) identified as M. Sudheesh hailing from Ayithara-Mambaram near Koothuparamba.
The public function held at the Town Square on May 26 to mark the ‘passing out’ of the first batch of nearly 3,000 stick-wielding members of the Red Volunteer Corps of the CPI(M) was the latest occasion for the party leadership to announce the latest catch from the other side.
Mr. Sudheesh was one among several neo-converts on view at the function, including some from the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and one from the Communist Party of India (CPI), but it was this ex-RSS ‘pracharak’ who stole the limelight on the occasion, for obvious reasons. The process of political conversions in the district was flagged off by the CPI(M) by wooing scores of BJP workers, including BJP’s former district president O.K. Vasu, to its side early last year. In retaliation, the BJP paraded its own batch of new converts from the rival side. When the CPI(M) trumpeted its success with Mr. Sudheesh’s crossing over, the BJP/RSS side rubbished the CPI(M)’s claim saying, at a public function the following day, that neither BJP-RSS leaders nor the local workers had heard about a ‘pracharak’ called Sudheesh.
With inputs from Girish Menon and N.J. Nair (Thiruvananthapuram) and Mohamed Nazeer (Kannur)
