M M Hassan yatra to reboot cash-strapped Congress

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Be it Assembly or Lok Sabha elections, Congress candidates in Kerala have always found it difficult making ends meet. The Chengannur by-election is no different.  KPCC president M. M. Hassan is kicking off his Janamochana Yatra on April 7 where the main agenda is the fund collection. A portion of the booty will go to Chengannur for its candidate D. Vijayakumar.

Deccan Chronicle had reported several times on the plight of the first-time candidates and first-time MLAs going bankrupt.  There have been numerous occasions when the Congress candidates have vociferously demanded the KPCC to take responsibility for election funding. Many a time the candidates themselves had to plead business people for money affecting their campaigning.  Mr Vijayakumar said his rivals the CPM and the BJP had already booked all the walls in the constituency.

“Their election campaigning resembles that of a festival. We will have to counter somehow the attack. KPCC promised me that they would do the needful,” he told DC. Though Mr Hassan's Janamochana Yatra is "against communal fascism and murder politics," the primary agenda is to raise money for running the party and funding the campaigning.  A DCC president said CPM and BJP candidates never had to bother about campaigning expenses as those are cadre parties.

“But unfortunately in Congress, things are different," he told DC. "The onus falls on the candidate leaving little time to concentrate on campaigning. But we are hoping that Mr Vijayakumar will not have to sweat it out for funds.” Another DCC president hit out at Mr Hassan for not fixing a quota for all 14 DCCs after last year’s membership drive.