Chennithala steps down from plum posts in Cong-backed bodies in Kerala

Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 1 (IANS) Veteran Congress legislator and former Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala has quit from the top posts that he was holding in four party backed organisations.

Among the posts that he held included those associated with the party backed TV channel, Jaihind TV, Veekshenem Daily, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Development Studies, which is an academic institution, and the K. Karunakaran Foundation.

Chennithala held crucial positions in these organisations as he was the state party president from 2005 to 2014, was the State Home Minister from January 2014 to May 2016, and from 2016 till 2021 he was the Leader of Opposition.

After the Congress-led UDF under him suffered a humiliating defeat in the April 6 Assembly polls, even though he had the majority support of his party legislators to continue in the Leader of Opposition post, the party high command intervened and decided to remove Chennithala and appoint V.D. Satheesan in his place.

Since then Chennithala has been unhappy and was peeved the way the high command intervened to select the 14 district party presidents.

With the high command deciding to call the shots and not to go after the veteran faction leaders like Oommen Chandy and Chennithala, who for long were foes, suddenly became friends and today they are united.

Incidentally, Chennithala's resignation comes at a time, when the high command is all set to reconstitute the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee.

After the April 6 electoral debacle, the Congress in Kerala, presently is passing through its worst times and recently two top party office bearers left the party and joined the CPI-M. Former State party president V.M. Sudheeran quit from the political affairs committee and also as a member of the AICC.