Thiruvananthapuram: The move to install Minister A P Anilkumar as KPCC president has run into the Chief Minister's resistance, with V D Satheesan telling those who sounded him out that the proposal is a factional demand dressed up as an organisational one.
The push comes from circles around AICC general secretary K C Venugopal, whose camp Anilkumar is seen to belong to. The Minister has let it be known that he is willing to move from the Secretariat to the party office. That would mean a Cabinet reshuffle barely six months after the United Democratic Front took charge.
Satheesan's objection works on two levels, people close to him said. He does not want the ministry churned this early. And he reads the KPCC proposal as an attempt by one section to shut the door on other leaders. Ministerial ambitions among some of those pressing for the change are part of the calculation, the same sources added.
He has put an alternative on the table. If the party wants a Dalit leader to head the state unit, he is understood to prefer a senior figure such as Kodikunnil Suresh over Anilkumar.
The Chief Minister is not holding out alone. Minister Ramesh Chennithala has been batting for Joseph Vazhakkan for the post. Two senior members of the same Cabinet are therefore lined up against the same name.
Anilkumar has not shut the door. He has said he will go wherever the party asks him to go, a formulation that leaves the decision with the high command rather than the state unit.
For the Congress in Keralam, the wrangle is awkwardly timed. The UDF is in its first year in office, and the party organisation has to be rebuilt for panchayat and local body elections. A fight over who sits in the party office, when the Cabinet's own members cannot agree on one name, hands the Left front an easy line of attack.
Nothing has been announced. The AICC has not named anyone for the post, and the Chief Minister's office has made no formal statement. Until the high command decides, the file stays where it is.