Amid all its unresolved crises, the Congress's Kerala unit has encountered another trouble with the party finding it difficult to finalise a candidate for the seat it is sure to win in the March 31 Rajya Sabha polls.
State leaders are divided over fixing a candidate even as the KPCC leadership is apparently pushing the name of M Liju. The central leadership, however, wants AICC secretary Krishnan Sreenivasan to be sent to the Upper House.
A section of the leaders are against the high command airdropping its candidate while another group is backing the central leadership's pick.
KPCC president K Sudhakaran had on Wednesday made it public that Liju was among the probable candidates. It is assumed that the move was part of resisting the KPCC's push for Sreenivasan.
Meanhwhile, seven leaders who belong to the alleged K C Venugopal faction on Thursday called AICC General Secretary Tariq Anwar, who is in charge of the Kerala unit, and requested him not to approve the candidature of Liju.
Senior leader and Vadakara MP, K Muraleedharan, went a step ahead and wrote a letter to party president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi asking them not to consider people who lost recent elections for Rajya Sabha elections. Muraleedharan, in his letter, suggested that those who lost elections should concentrate in their respective constituencies.
Muraleedharan's move is viewed as extending support to Sreenivasan, who is a loyalist of the former's family. Sreenivasan, a former civil servant, was the officer on special duty when Muraleedharan's father K Karunakaran was a Union minister. He then went on to become a loyalist of Sonia Gandhi and his family.
Sudhakaran on Thursday said the candidate will be announced on Friday.
"I have met Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi and held a discussion on nomination for the Rajya Sabha seat. Both want to promote youngsters."
The elections to three Rajya Sabha seats from Kerala are to be held on March 31. Those who are retiring include 81-year-old Congress veteran A K Antony, K Somaprasad (CPM) and M V Shreyams Kumar, who leads the Loktantrik Janata Dal, an ally of the Left Front in Kerala.
With the ruling Pinarayi Vijayan government enjoying a full majority in the 140-member Assembly, it's a foregone conclusion that the Left Democratic Front will win two and the Congress-led opposition one.
Antony has already informed the two-time former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, State Congress president K. Sudhakaran and other senior leaders that he is not interested for another term.
The claimants are many including outgoing state party president and former Union Minister Mullapally Ramachandran and K V Thomas, who was deeply upset when he was not given his sitting Ernakulam Lok Sabha seat in 2019. Thomas has met Sonia Gandhi but sources say he has not got a positive reply from her.
