The feud within the Congress party ruling the Kalamassery municipality continues to simmer. Though there was a rumour Tuesday morning that municipal chairperson Jessy Peter resigned on orders from the District Congress Committee (DCC), party sources said that the State leadership of the party had issued instructions to her not to resign but to settle differences within the party through discussions.
Ms. Peter was admitted to a private hospital near Kochi Tuesday morning and is learnt not to have submitted her resignation. DCC president T.J. Vinod ruled out any quarrel or differences of opinion within the party. He told The Hindu that Ms. Peter was asked to resign by the DCC. In fact, he said, she was supposed to put in her papers on November 8 as per a decision by a sub-committee appointed by the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) when M.M. Hassan was the State party chief. Mr. Vinod later said that he was not aware whether Ms. Peter had resigned as he was out of Kochi.
Sources within the Congress, who did not want to be named, said that there was pressure on Ms. Peter to step down to make way for Rukhia Jamal, wife of a former municipal chairman Jamal Manakkadan, to take office. They said that the decision to ask Ms. Peter to step down was the result of a standoff within the party over the municipal leadership. They also claimed that Ms. Peter had not been instructed to step down by the State party leadership.
Congress Mandalam president A.K. Basheer echoed Mr. Vinod’s views. He said that there was no difference of opinion or group quarrels within the Congress. The decision to ask the chairperson to resign was unanimous, he said.
Sources said that there had not been any agreement that Ms. Peter would resign on November 8 when the UDF rule of the municipality completed three years. They claimed that V.M. Sudheeran, who was the KPCC president when the new council was sworn in 2015, had not issued any such instructions then.