Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president designate K. Sudhakaran has said the Congress will not give the government a carte blanche even during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking to reporters here on Wednesday, Mr. Sudhakaran slammed the Left Democratic Front (LDF) for injecting politics into the fight against the global scourge. “The CPI(M) has deliberately kept Congress workers out of pandemic relief efforts. It has browbeaten authorities to ensure only LDF workers got volunteer passes with an eye on future elections. Party workers will rally strongly against the partisan approach,” he said.
The AICC had tasked him to rebuild the Congress in Kerala from scratch. The party would emphasise merit while choosing leaders. Group equations would take a backseat.
Mr. Sudhakaran said he belonged to no group. “I defeated ‘A’ and ‘I’ group nominees to become the District Congress Committee (DCC) president in Kannur in 1991,” he said.
The CPI(M) had spread the rumour that the new KPCC president was soft towards the BJP to alienate minority communities from the Congress. The ploy failed at the hustings in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and would flop again.
Mr. Sudhakaran said the BJP in Kerala would never surmount its inherent weaknesses. The BJP’s majoritarian Hindutva politics had traction in highly literate and progressive Kerala. The party would remain on the fringes of the political spectrum.
For the Congress, the main enemy is the CPI(M) and its politics of violence. The party would meet the CPI(M) head-on, he said.
Mr. Sudhakaran said nobody had eased him into the KPCC president’s seat from above. He had come up the ranks of the Congress and suffered much in the process. He owed the position to the party’s national leadership and none else.
Mr. Sudhakaran said former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, former Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala, Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan and others had backed him for the post. He would take charge on a date convenient to party workers.
