Three-man team to lead Congress

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: KPCC president V. M. Sudheeran said in New Delhi that a collective KPCC leadership will lead the party in the upcoming Assembly elections in State.

This means that Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who led the party in the 2009 Assembly election, will have company in Mr Sudheeran and home minister Ramesh Chennithala this time around.

After his meeting with the AICC leadership, Mr Sudheeran informed the media that a three-member committee consisting of KPCC secretary, DCC president and KPCC general secretary-in-charge of all the 14 districts will hold talks with the lower rung of the party to decide on appropriate candidates.

Based in the report from this panel, the three senior leaders will decide on the final list of candidature, which will be submitted to the AICC. After the two-hour-long meeting with the AICC leadership, Mr Sudheeran said that the criteria to selected candidates would be ‘winability and acceptability’

“AICC has urged the need to have a continuity of the UDF government. For this, the Congress and UDF should stand united and face the issues. The party leadership has asked us to complete the common discussions within the party and with allies at the earliest," said Mr Sudheeran.

He said that his candidature was not discussed in Monday’s meeting. Sources said that AICC has asked the three senior leaders to expedite the seat sharing talks.

The Congress high command is expected to take stern action if the leaders divided the seats as per group equations. The talks were held at Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s residence which was also attended by party vice-president Rahul Gandhi, senior Congress leaders A. K. Antony, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mukul Wasnik, AICC general secretary in-charge of the state. Earlier in the day, Mr Chandy and Mr Sudheeran held talks with Mr Antony at his official residence.