KOCHI: At the end of a high drama spanning 10 days, the Congress Parliamentary Party of Kochi Corporation elected Soumini Jain as the mayoral candidate and T. J. Vinod as deputy mayoral candidate but not without dissent.
Councillor from Konam ward K. R. Premkumar walked out alleging that the KPCC leadership imposed the persons for the two posts without giving the councillors a chance to elect them.
Soumini Jain upset the plans of the dark horse and greenhorn in the race, Shyni Mathew, who had the blessings of the Latin Catholic Church and faced 'money bag' charges. Shyni was supported by a section of the Congress leaders belonging to all groups, especially the 'A' group.
The way for Soumini was cleared after KPCC president V. M. Sudheeran insisted that those with experience only should be considered for the top posts.
The solid backing of Ramesh Chennithala made the way easy for vastly experienced T. J. Vinod for the deputy mayor post which was allotted to the 'I' group.
Premkumar who expressed his dissent told DC that the the Congress Parliamentary Party was not given a chance to elect its leader and the leadership imposed the leader from above.
"West Kochi is being consistently neglected by the authorities and I wanted a councillor from the region elected as mayor," he said adding that he was not rooting for Shyni Mathew.
However, he said in the name of Shyni Mathew, a whole community was painted in bad colours. He said that he feared the same fate for West Kochi in the selection of standing committee chairpersons also.
Premkumar, however, said that he has not decided yet on his vote in the mayor election as the party has issued a whip. "I will decide (it) only later," he said.
Meanwhile, Youth Congress leader Deepthy Mary Varghese who lost from the Kunnumpuram division came out with a Facebook post earlier in the day blasting the attempts to "impose" greenhorns on the top posts.
She said the handing over of the deputy mayor post to a greenhorn, B. Bhadra, earlier and her blasting of the party ahead of the recent elections should be a lesson to the party, she said.
She also said that she was given a seat where the party had weak chances and such attempts to "wipe out people who devoted their life for the party" were made in the recent elections.
The CPM on Tuesday decided to field Dr Poornima Narayanan for the post of mayor and K. J. Antony for the post of deputy mayor.
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