Senior leader of the Congress and third-time Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat, Shashi Tharoor has said that a unified party was the need of the hour and the petty group politics did not have any place in the state unit. Tharoor was addressing a function at Bodhigram in Pathanamthitta on Sunday. The former UN diplomat said that the party needed to be united and there was no need for 'A' and 'I' groups in the Congress of Kerala. He was referring to the two prominent groups in the state Congress which have always been calling the shots in the party hierarchy.
While former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy leads the 'A' group, former state home minister, Ramesh Chennithala heads the 'I' group. Shashi Tharoor said that he was updating the respective District Congress Committee (DCC) presidents about his visit to the respective districts.
He has drawn flak from several senior Congress leaders, including state opposition leader VD Satheeshan, who commented that he had to intimate the respective DCC presidents on his visit to those districts. Kottayam DCC president Nattakam Suresh and Kozhikode DCC president Praveen Kumar had said earlier that they did not know of Tharoor's visit, and the DCC presidents not knowing about the visit of a senior leader in their respective districts was not in lieu of the organisational hierarchy. However Tharoor said that his office had intimidated the Kottayam DCC president of his visit, and added that there was proof for it.
Meanwhile, the statement of Natakam Suresh drew criticism from senior Congress leader and Member of Parliament from Vadakara seat, K Muraleedharan. He said that whatever a DCC president had to say, he should tell it within the party. Nattakam Suresh retorted by stating that this was applicable to K Mualeedharan as well.
The Congress in Kerala appears divided over the entry of Tharoor into the state's active politics. The alliance partner of Congress in Kerala, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), said that it was unfortunate to have such a controversy over Tharoor's visit to various districts of the state.
(With IANS input)