The national leadership of the Congress is reportedly opposed to any ‘knee-jerk’ leadership change in Kerala in the wake of the poor showing of the party in the local body polls.
According to indications on Sunday, the triumvirate of Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Mullappally Ramachandran, Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala, and former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy are likely to lead the party into the Assembly polls.
Meet from Dec. 23
A party insider said leadership change at the KPCC level was unlikely to be on the table when district-level office-bearers, MPs and MLAs meet for a post-poll stocktaking from December 23 to 27 here.
All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in charge of Kerala Tariq Anwar would attend the meeting on its penultimate day. He had on Saturday warned State leaders against playing the blame game.
The bickering and name-calling in the party had manifested in the open mostly as posters that lampooned some leaders for their ‘ineptitude’ while championing the cause of a few others as potential saviours of the Congress. Mr. Anwar had promised a fair hearing and quick resolution of grievances in the KPCC.
By one account, the KPCC seemed to have revolved around to the view that the optics of the United Democratic Front’s ‘overt alliance’ with the Welfare Party of India (WPI), the political arm of the Jamaat-e-Islami, had created an impression among some section of Hindu and Christian voters that the Congress had opened the door for radical Islamists.
News reports and images of UDF convener M.M. Hassan calling on Jamaat-e-Islami Amir M.I. Abdul Aziz had arguably provided ammunition to the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to take potshots at the secular image of the Congress.
The BJP had used the opportunity to raise the spectre of ‘love jihad,’ a highly ambivalent but politically explosive word employed by the Sangh Parivar, to discourage ‘orchestrated’ inter-faith marriage with an eye on conversion, particularly between Muslim men and Hindu women. Several church factions in Kerala had also raised concern about ‘love jihad,’ which several law enforcements had debunked as misleading.
The Congress also reportedly felt that the BJP had attracted some of the anti-incumbency votes that should have fallen into the UDF’s kitty. Some leaders believed the party should have put the government in the dock more forcefully for refusing to forsake the State levy on fuel and LPG. Such a poll campaign would have possibly resonated among households.
