V M Sudheeran, the Congress party president in Kerala, has resigned on health grounds amidst talk of organisational polls, exactly after two years in office.
“I hurt my rib last week and doctors advised me three weeks rest,” he told reporters at the party headquarters. “That’s too long a period for me to depute someone else. I have been pondering over this for the past two-three days,” he said.
The loner – nominated by party president Sonia Gandhi to the top job at the instance of senior leader A K Antony – had been under tremendous pressure to quit.
A staunch critic of the development priorities of then chief minister Oommen Chandy, Sudheeran took charge in February 2014, setting the ball, as many analysts see, for the downfall of the Congress-led government.
They blame it on the “high-command” culture of hoisting leaders that destroyed the party in most of states.
“Now that the Uttar Pradesh experiment appeared to be making no impact and Rahul Gandhi’s has weakened, Sudheeran knows his days are numbered,” commentator Jacob George told Gulf Times.
“Old guards like Chandy, who remain hugely popular, will call the shots. After all, he has got an assurance on party polls,” George said.
After his humiliating defeat in the last year’s elections despite a better record of governance, Chandy had extracted an assurance of holding organisational polls after elections in five states were completed.
“With the state elections over, it is time for the Congress to set its house in order. This is going to make things tough for Sudheeran,” feels George.
“The allies were also uncomfortable with his unnecessary interventions. Nobody wants him to continue, and he’s perhaps the only one to go unwept, unsung. He’ll be judged a failed president.”
State leaders who had never hidden their displeasure of him, including his predecessors Ramesh Chennithala and K Muraleedharan, however, insisted Sudheeran was indeed having serious health problems.
However, Chandy, who had earlier refused to take up the reins as the assembly floor leader, said he only came to know of the resignation from the media.
Asked if he would take up the job, Chandy said, “You know I’m not the kind of person to change my views all the time.” After the electoral debacle, Chandy had made clear that he would like to work at the grass root level and not take on any official responsibility.
Sudheeran, 69, was seen as the driving force behind the phased prohibition Chandy was forced to announce in 2014, which the present Communist government stalled, turning the powerful liquor industry against him.
Differences between Sudheeran and Chandy reached a flashpoint when he insisted on denying nominations to Chandy’s close confidantes facing unproven allegations, denting his image on the eve of elections.
Sudheeran was a staunch critic of big-ticket projects like the now shelved private airport in Aranmula, mining of mineral sand deposits worth billions of rupees and widening highways to international standards.
He also opposed Chandy’s move to relax landholding ceiling to facilitate setting up of software parks by private investors like in neighbouring states.
As assembly speaker, Sudheeran had earned the wrath of late chief minister K Karunakaran several times and eventually became unacceptable to dominant groups in the party for his strong views.
V M Sudheeran
