Dhawan fails to end Kerala Congress crisis

Congress general secretary R K Dhawan's efforts to end a three-month-old crisis in the party's Kerala unit have run into rough weather.

Dhawan had to abandon his plans of holding party organisational elections in the state with the warring factions sharply differing on the mode of elections.

While the faction led by Congress Working Commitee member A K Antony and former minister G Karthikeyan favours a secret ballot, the group led by former Union minister K Karunakaran insists that the votes should be cast by raising hands.

Karunakaran's son K Murlidharan has told Dhawan that the secret ballet system was not acceptable to the group.

The Antony group, represented by Oomen Chandy, and another rival group led by Ramesh Chennithala, MP, told the party functionary that the secret ballot was the only way out. They warned that there could be street battles if any other mode was adopted.

Though Dhawan remained non-committal on a fresh election schedule, he said the contentious issues could be sorted out if the two groups sat together. With the three factions insisting on the appointment of returning officers on group lines and as per the strength of each faction, another attempt at conducting the poll failed.

Earlier, returning officer Kishore Chandra tried to organise the election after Karunakaran and Antony had several rounds of discussions with party president Sitaram Kesri at New Delhi.

The Karunakaran group relented on its demand of returning officers's appointment with a view to easing out Vaylar Ravi from the party presidentship. The former Union minister fell out with Ravi after the latter allegedly bungled his chances of getting a Congress Working Committee nomination.

Knowing Karunakaran's opposition to his candidature, Ravi has not taken any initiative in seeking a reelection.

Though Karunakaran's nominee for the post is still not known, the Antony group may field Chandy. The third group, which has been working in tandem with the Antony group ever since it severed links with Karunakaran, may support Chandy.