Kottayam: Yet another controversy has erupted in the Congress in Kerala over a function to be attended by Shashi Tharoor, MP, whose attempts to emerge as a new power centre in the party has irked the state leadership.
In the latest incident, the Kottayam District Congress committee (DCC) has raised a complaint with the party's internal disciplinary panel for committing a Youth Congress event at Erattupetta without its knowledge. DCC president Nattakom Suresh met senior leader Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan on Saturday to discuss the matter. Suresh will not attend the programme saying he was not informed about it in advance.
Radhakrishnan also said he will stay away from the event in compliance with the party's disciplinary mechanism. "There's a norm that the lower committees concerned should be informed when party events are organised. I have come across open complaints that this norm was not followed while organising the Erattupetta event. Hence, I'm staying away from it as I don't want to violate the party's disciplinary framework," the Kottayam MLA told reporters on Saturday.
Reacting to the reports about the complaint over the event, Tharoor said he will attend it without fail.
Tharoor is set to attend a series of events in central and southern Kerala from Saturday. The programmes include K M Chandy commemoration at Pala and the Youth Congress event. He will also be meeting the bishops of Pala and Kanjirappally. On Sunday, he is scheduled to visit the erstwhile Pandalam Palace and the famous temple there. He is also the chief guest of the silver jubilee celebrations of the Christian Service Society to be held at Marine Drive, Kochi on Sunday evening.
Tharoor's recent political tour of the northern region of the state had triggered a controversy. Tharoor's opponents in the party feel that through his programmes, he was trying to position himself as an ideal chief ministerial candidate of the Congress-led UDF for the 2026 Assembly polls.
In the wake of the controversy over his Malabar tour, the disciplinary panel of KPCC had issued a strict directive to its leaders not to bypass the respective party forums while attending programmes in each place and directed the leaders to intimate them in advance.
When this was pointed out to the Thiruvananthapuram MP by reporters on Sunday, he said that DCC presidents are always informed whenever he attends any public event.
However, if it was a private event, there was no need to inform DCC presidents about the same, he added.
Leader of the Opposition in state assembly V D Satheesan, without naming Tharoor, had recently said that any kind of sectarianism or parallel activities would not be allowed in the party and warned that such moves would be dealt with "seriously".
Later, addressing a party event, Satheesan tried to quell the controversy by rejecting reports of a rift between him and Tharoor. He lamented that he has been portrayed as a "villain" in the "stories" being created and that there was some issue between the two.