Thiruvananthapuram: Former KPCC president and veteran Congress leader V M Sudheeran resigned from the UDF high-power committee on Thursday.
This was only a formality as Sudheeran had boycotted all the committee meetings ever since the UDF decided to offer the lone Rajya Sabha seat to Kerala Congress (Mani) group, which was not even part of the Congress-led opposition front then. Sudheeran wanted the seat to be with the Congress at a time when the BJP was trying to increase its numbers in both the houses of Parliament. He then asked the Congress leadership whether there was any guarantee that Mani would not join the BJP.
In fact, in the UDF high-powered committee meeting held right after the Rajya Sabha largesse, an apparently agitated Mani said he was a politician with scruples and not someone who conveniently jumps from one place to the other. “I would have told this to Sudheeran's face had he been here,” Mani had reportedly said.
Sudheeran's resignation letter, sent as an e-mail to KPCC president M M Hassan, did not mention any reason for his decision. He was a member of the committee by virtue of being a former KPCC president. After his rant against Mani, Sudheeran had launched a scathing attack against former chief minister Oommen Chandy. Sudheeran said that Chandy had behaved with deep hostility ever since he took over as the KPCC president. He said Chandy's blanket closure of liquor bars was nothing but an attempt to upstage him. He even charged that Chandy worked for the interests of the Adani Group during the Vizhinjam seaport discussions. All this was done behind the back of the Congress High Command, Sudheeran had added.
Irony is, the High Command has now nominated Chandy to the Congress Working Committee, the party's highest decision-making body. For the former KPCC president, this perhaps was the last straw.
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