Thiruvananthapuram: Senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader PC Chacko resigned as the party’s state president. Manorama News reported that he tendered his resignation to NCP national chief Sharad Pawar. 

PC Chacko, a former Lok Sabha MP is also the party’s national working committee president. It is learned that an internal rift in the party over replacing AK Saseendran with Thomas K Thomas in the cabinet led to his resignation.

It is rumoured that Chacko was forced to quit the president’s post after Saseendran and Thomas resolved their issues. Sources hinted that Thomas K Thomas is likely to be appointed as the new state president of the party.

It is alleged that internal rifts and other issues worsened within the party following Chacko’s entry as state president.

Thomas K Thomas and PC. Chacko attempted to remove Saseendran from the Forest Minister post. Amid this, Thomas faced allegations of bribing two LDF MLAs to defect to the rival NCP faction led by Ajit Pawar in a bid to pressurise the Chief Minister over his cabinet berth. Following this, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan took a firm stance in favour of Saseendran’s ministership.

This led the Thomas faction to join hands with Saseendran. When the Chief Minister extended his support to Saseendran, a majority of the NCP district committees backed him.

After all these dramatic sequences in NCP, Chacko decided to step down as the state president.