Chennithala is hurt and humiliated; unlikely to accept new responsibilities at the national level, sources close to him told South First.
Ramesh Chennithala. (X)
The reconstitution of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) has left senior party leader Ramesh Chennithala “hurt and humiliated” even as the inclusion of Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor into the party’s highest decision-making body is likely to alter the power equations within the Congress in Kerala.
Former Opposition Leader in the state Assembly, Chennithala was campaigning for the party’s candidate Chandy Oommen for the Puthupally bypoll on Sunday, 20 August, when he received the news that he has been made a permanent invitee to CWC, a status he had held almost two decades ago.
Chennithala, who has grown in stature as a senior Congress leader through years of work in the party’s student and youth organisations, was a formidable force in Kerala unit of the party until his junior colleague, KC Venugopal, emerged stronger at the national level as the AICC secretary in-charge of organisational affairs.
Chennithala left the bypoll campaign trail and returned home to Haripad, Alappuzha, soon after receiving the news of the CWC rejig. He confined himself to his home on Monday, 21 August.
Leaders close to him said Chennithala was feeling humiliated and that he would write to AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge, and senior leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, expressing his displeasure soon after the 5 September bypoll. Former chief minister Oommen Chandy’s 18 July demise necessitated the by-election.
Shashi Tharoor. (Twitter)
Disciplined and loyal, Chennithala did not go public after the CWC rejig. He told the media that he had nothing to comment on the high command’s decision.
Sources close to Chennithala said he would reject the permanent invitee status and the high command’s move to appoint him as the national general secretary in charge of the party unit in Maharashtra.
He has made up his mind not to join the party’s organisational set-up in Delhi. He would remain in state politics.
Chennithala believes that he was the most eligible candidate for a CWC membership from Kerala, and nobody else, except him, could replace Oommen Chandy in the top body.
He was disappointed since the party preferred Tharoor, despite the Thiruvananthapuram MP being his junior. Chennithala was at the forefront of campaigning for Kharge when Tharoor challenged his AICC president candidature in October last year.
Until recently, two groups — one led by Oommen Chandy and the other by Chennithala — were prominent in the Congress party’s Kerala unit. Tharoor remained neutral even when group politics made more news than the Congress as a single unit. By roping Tharoor into the CWC, the AICC seems to have sent a strong message to factionalism.
Oommen Chandy with AK Antony and Ramesh Chennithala. (Supplied)
The leadership ignored the criticism that Tharoor stayed away from the party’s organisational affairs in Kerala. He was also accused of having a penchant for operating outside the party diktat, like the Malabar tour he undertook in November 2022.
With Tharoor in the CWC, he would have a say in party matters in Kerala, and his decisions would be binding.
Adding to Chennithala’s woes, Venugopal would grow stronger in the Kerala unit with KPCC president K Sudhakaran and Leader of Opposition VD Satheesan becoming his trusted lieutenants. With the demise of Oommen Chandy, the faction he had headed failed to find another leader to continue the pressure tactics.
Chennithala might lose his grip over the party in Kerala with Tharoor, Sudhakaran, and Satheesan gaining the upper hand.
Factional fights were common in Congress’s Kerala unit when K Karunakaran and AK Antony led the warring groups, ‘I’ and ‘A’. While Chennithala took over the ‘I’ faction from Karunakaran. Oommen Chandy became the leader of the Antony group after the latter shifted to national politics, and went on to become the Union defence minister.
With the factions losing steam, and leaders rejecting factionalism, the political equations within the Congress might change. The party leadership has been striving to fight the CPI(M)-led LDF as a single unit and to take advantage of the clear anti-incumbency feeling in Kerala.
In 2019, the Congress-led UDF won 19 of the 20 Lok Sabha segments in the state. But it lost the 2021 Assembly election 41 to 99 in the 140-seat Assembly, giving the Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF government an unprecedented second term.
While most leaders are agreed that Chennitala is qualified to be a CWC member, they pointed out several practical difficulties. Chennithala, Venugopal, and Tharoor belong to the prominent upper-caste Nair community, and the party would have reservations about inducting a third member from the same section since it could upset caste equations.
VD Satheesan (Facebook/VD Satheesan)
Meanwhile, sources said Antony has been retained in the CWC to win the confidence of the powerful Christian community.
When contacted, Satheesan claimed Chennithala was not upset. “Kerala received proper representation in the CWC. By accommodating Tharoor, who contested against Kharge in the AICC poll, the party has set a new democratic standard,” the Opposition leader told South First.
“Chennithala is our most eminent leader, and the party would give him major responsibilities,” he said.
Chennithala, who was the home minister in the Oommen Chandy Cabinet, started suffering setbacks from the 2021 Assembly elections onwards when the LDF retained power for a consecutive second term, a first in the state. Despite being projected as the chief ministerial candidate, he was not made the Opposition leader. Satheesan replaced him.
Since then, Chennithala has been just an MLA, without any state or national-level organisational responsibility.
Chennithala, who rose through the ranks to be the national president of the party’s student wing, the NSUI, and the Youth Congress, has held many important party positions in Delhi. He was also a Lok Sabha member for a long time. He was a permanent invitee to the CWC in 2004. On the other hand, Tharoor joined the Congress only over a decade ago.
K Sudhakaran is flanked by UDF convener MM Hassan (left), Opposition Leader VD Satheesan and AICC general secretary KC Venugopal (right). (KB Jayachandran/South First)
On the exclusion of Chennithala from the CWC, Venugopal told reporters that the Congress would iron out any issues within the party.
“Ramesh Chennithala is not only the party’s Kerala leader but also one of the important leaders of Congress in India. If he has any difficulty, the party leadership will not hesitate to solve it,” he said, adding that the party will use Chennithala’s services.
Venugopal further said that as per the decision taken in the party’s Chintan Shivir — or brainstorming session — the reorganisation ensured 50 percent representation for leaders belonging to backward, SC/ST, and minority communities. He termed the CWC list “revolutionary”.
Kharge on Sunday reconstituted the party’s 84-member top decision-making body. He also included prominent leaders of the “G-23 group”, Tharoor and Anand Sharma, who were critical of the party leadership in the past, among the 84 members.
The CWC, formed 10 months after Kharge took charge after defeating Tharoor, included several young faces below 50, leaders from weaker sections, and 15 women.
The CWC has 39 regular members, 32 permanent invitees, including some in-charges of states, and 13 special invitees, including presidents of the Youth Congress, the NSUI, the Mahila Congress, and the Seva Dal as ex-officio members.
(With PTI inputs)
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