By Shankar Raj*
Thiruvananthapuram: Senior Congress leaders in Kerala have started jostling to occupy the pole position after the Lok Sabha results are announced on June 4, 2024. And in the process, fissures have started emerging.
At the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) meeting held in Indira Bhavan here on May 4, Congress leader K Muralidharan allegedly took on some senior Congress leaders for working against him in Thrissur where he is facing a tough fight from actor Suresh Gopi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Kozhikode candidate and senior party leader MK Raghavan too alleged that he did not get support from a section in the party that had, according to him, voted for the BJP.
But addressing a press conference, working president MM Hassan and Muralidharan put up a show of unity and denied any bickering at the KPCC meeting.
Hassan said except in four seats where the Congress is facing a tough fight, it will be a cakewalk in the remaining 16 seats. “Our surveys show that the party will bag all the 20 seats in the state,” he said.
Top leaders are looking for the road ahead after the Lok Sabha polls as Assembly elections are due in another two years.
If Congress president K Sudhakaran wins the Kannur Lok Sabha seat, the post will fall vacant and Opposition leader V D Satheesan wants Hassan to continue as the permanent president so that he could be a candidate for the CM’s chair, should the Congress win in 2026.
Hassan belongs to the ‘A’ group that was once led by former CM Oommen Chandy. Satheesan’s moves are now seen as an effort to patch up with the ‘A’ group that has been at loggerheads with the Congress state leadership. This would leave Sudhakaran isolated. Party insiders admit that fissures have developed in their rapport.
Insiders admit that Satheesan’s moves are in an effort to garner the support of as many legislators as possible keeping in mind the 2026 assembly elections.
Satheesan is currently on ‘voice rest’ and his office says that there is a standing directive from AICC that Hassan will do all the talking.
*Shankar Raj is a former editor of The New Indian Express, Karnataka and Kerala, and writes regularly on current affairs.
