The Congress high command may have ironed out the party State unit’s organisational differences by accommodating all prominent factions in the 304-member Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC). However, a few leaders who have been excluded from the list have expressed discontentment though they do not want to come out publicly against the party.
“May be , I was dropped because of my old age. Let new people lead the party now. If it was a contest for the organisational polls, I would have given a try,” Mr. M. Veerankutty, former president of Kozhikode District Congress Committee and former chairman of the Kerala State Minority Commission, said. Reacting to the list of new members approved by the Congress Election Committee, the 70-year-old Congress leader told The Hindu on Monday that he had never been after any posts and that he did not want to make this an issue.
Loyal soldier
“I am still with the party and I am a loyal soldier as I have always been before. But the leadership should not forget that I stood firm behind the party when it split and formed the Democratic Indira Congress (Karunakaran),” Mr. Veerankutty, a protégé of veteran Congress leader K. Karunakaran, said.
Similarly, A.P. Abdullakutty, a former legislator from Kannur, said he was indeed pained by the exclusion from the KPCC’s new list. “I had been an active member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) before I joined the Congress. As an MLA, I had been on the panel of the executive committee of the KPCC,” he said.
The former poster boy of the Marxists said that he learnt about of the KPCC list from the media. “I spoke to the Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala. Perhaps, I may be nominated to the KPCC by the president as he is empowered to nominate 5% of the members,” Mr. Abdullakutty said.