Fresh trouble seems to be brewing in the Congress in Kerala after differences surfaced within the party over not appointing Abin Varkey as the president of the state Youth Congress.
A leading contender for this post, Varkey has instead been appointed as a national secretary of the Congress’s youth wing.
The development has come in the wake of the unceremonious exit of Rahul Mamkootathil as the Kerala Youth Congress chief amid allegations of sexual misconduct and ahead of the upcoming local body and Assembly polls.
The Congress on Monday appointed O J Janeesh and Binu Chulliyil as the state president and working president of the state Youth Congress respectively while “promoting” Varkey to the national level.
Expressing reservation over this new appointment, Varkey “requested” the party to allow him to continue in Kerala. “I am not saying the party’s decision was wrong, but I want to be the Congress’s fighter against the CPI(M) government in Kerala. I am not challenging the party. I am just making a request to the leadership,” he said Tuesday.
Congress sources said Varkey’s chances of succeeding Mamkootathil diminished owing to the party’s political balancing and calculations.
Currently, the state Congress unit and the party’s student wing, Kerala Students’ Union, are headed, respectively, by Sunny Joseph and Alosious Xavier, both Christian faces, while the state Mahila Congress is led by Jebi Mather, who is from the Muslim community.
While Varkey is also a Christian, O J Janeesh belongs to the Hindu community.
Sources said the Congress, already facing heat from the ruling CPI(M) and BJP over “accommodating minorities”, feared that Varkey’s elevation would backfire.
Even as Varkey dismissed such claims, saying that the “Congress is an organisation which believes that secularism must be protected as the pupil of the eye”, senior party leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly V D Satheesan termed Varkey’s concerns as “personal matters”.
Joseph, too, took a dig at Varkey’s “request”. “He can work at the national level while staying in Kerala. K C Venugopal (All India Congress Committee general secretary in charge of organisation) is in Kerala as well as across the country,” he said.
Varkey was appointed the state Youth Congress vice-president in 2023 after finishing behind Mamkootathil in the organisational polls. Since Mamkootathil’s exit in August, Congress leaders have been scouting for nominees to fill the post. Varkey was seen as a frontrunner due to his perceived proximity to the AICC’s Maharashtra in-charge Ramesh Chennithala.
The current turmoil has also drawn a reaction from senior Congress leader and former MP K Muraleedharan, who expressed concern over factionalism gripping the party. “We have been in the Opposition for the last nine years, and the issue of groupism is surfacing when we are desperately trying to come back to power,” he said.
Meanwhile, a section of Congress leaders has blamed Venugopal’s growing clout for the issue. Sources said both Venugopal and Chennithala are asserting their influence in state party affairs, where Satheesan has been a key party face. “Several state leaders are rallying behind Venugopal after he emerged as a major player in the party,” a source said.