Kannur: Congress state president Sunny Joseph on Friday acknowledged that the presence of senior party office-bearers in the state Cabinet had created “time constraints” for the party’s organisational functioning, but rejected the suggestion that the Congress was “missing” in action in the state.

Joseph, however, said he was looking to the All India Congress Committee (AICC) to appoint a new state president in Kerala. “I would be the first person to welcome the new president,” he said at a press conference in Iritty on Friday.

Sunny Joseph, who is both Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president and Electricity Minister, is not alone in straddling the party organisation and government. KPCC working presidents A P Anilkumar and P C Vishnunadh are also ministers, while Youth Congress state president O J Janeesh is the Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs.

“Some of us, including me, are ministers and are also involved in leading the Congress and its affiliated organisations, so there are some time constraints. Even overcoming those constraints, the Congress has a strong group of leaders who are working to carry out the necessary organisational activities,” Joseph said while speaking to reporters in Iritty in his home constituency in Kannur district.

Joseph said he visits the KPCC headquarters every day whenever he is in Thiruvananthapuram. He added that he would welcome a full-time KPCC president at the headquarters. “I would be the first to welcome the KPCC president coming there full-time,” Joseph said, adding that such matters would take their own time and were before the AICC leadership.

Asked about Mahila Congress state president and Rajya Sabha member Jebi Mather repeatedly raising the issue of the KPCC executive committee not being convened, Joseph took a swipe at her decision to make the matter public. “A KPCC executive meeting should not be convened through the media,” he said.

Mather said on Friday she had been seeking an executive committee meeting for the past three months and had conveyed the demand to Joseph personally, over the phone, through email and in writing. She has said she received no response to her requests.

Joseph said the party had been holding meetings and discussions at various levels, even though a full meeting of the executive committee had not been convened. He said a meeting of KPCC office-bearers had been held twice in person and once online since the elections, while the Political Affairs Committee had met twice. Leadership-level discussions were also taking place, he said.

His remarks came amid Congress leaders going public over the party's functioning in the state. Kasaragod MP Rajmohan Unnithan had criticised the functioning of the Congress, saying that the “party leadership is absent” and calling for the KPCC to be reorganised.

Joseph rejected that assessment. “I have not noticed anything of the sort. Nobody feels that there is no party,” he said. He pointed to the Congress-led UDF’s performance in recent local-body bypolls, saying the LDF had won only three more wards than the UDF, one of which in Palakkad was decided by a draw of lots. "This reduced the difference to two wards," he said, while acknowledging internal problems in Chirayinkeezhu that had cost the UDF two seats. “The people are still standing with the UDF and the Congress,” he said.

Joseph’s comments came a day after UDF convener Adoor Prakash publicly criticised Chief Minister V D Satheesan for not convening a UDF meeting and said he had come to know of government decisions through the media, particularly the appointment of Indian Union Muslim League leader M K Muneer as chairman of the Kerala Administrative Reforms Commission and Forward Bloc national general secretary G Devarajan as Kerala’s special representative in Delhi.

Mahila Morcha state president Mather on Friday publicly backed Prakash’s right to raise his concerns while reiterating her demand for a KPCC executive committee meeting.

Pressed on the open dissent within the party, Joseph said: “I do not usually discuss internal party matters at press conferences.”

When pressed further, he walked out of the press conference, saying he had called it to discuss the attacks on Congress offices and on minister Janeesh in Kannur and Kasaragod on Thursday.