Discord in the Congress in Kerala between Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and KPCC president Ramesh Chennithala has sharpened after the possibility of the latter's entry into the state cabinet with a plum portfolio got dimmed.
With the Bharatiya Janata Party needling it on the issue of naming chief ministerial candidate, Congress on Monday said it was its strategy not to declare its choice for the post in the run-up to the May five in Karnataka Assembly polls in which it hopes to come back to power.
Days after facing party action for praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday led a cleanliness campaign at Vizhinjam near Thiruvananthapuram and said no political meaning should be read into it.
The JD-S, which has 34 seats in the assembly, is not in a position to win a seat in Rajya Sabha on its own and will need support from the Congress with its surplus votes. A minimum of 44 votes are required for candidates to win. If he wins, this will be the second Rajya Sabha entry for 87-year-old Gowda, the first time being in 1996 as PM.
He said the states needed to also do their bit on reduction of petrol price.
Haripad, the rural assembly segment in Kerala's rice bowl Kuttanad, has gained greater political significance with the entry of KPCC president Ramesh Chennithala as the United Democratic Front candidate.
The LDF was also leading in 10 out of the 14 district panchayats and 108 block panchayats of the total of 152, according to the State Election Commission figures.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Saturday dissociated itself from a controversial article published in its Malayalam mouthpiece that Nathuram Godse should have targeted Jawaharlal Nehru instead of Mahatma Gandhi as he was responsible for Partition, a view that came under attack from political parties.
The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president Ramesh Chennithala has charged the Communist Party of India-Marxist Poliburo of supporting corruption in the party by aligning with the official faction of the party in the multicrore SNC Lavalin corruption case.
Former BJP union Minister Taradevi Siddartha, former Kannada Paksha MP S B Sidnal and former Janata Parivar Karnataka Assembly Legislator Jayaprakash Hegde on Tuesday joined the Congress in the presence of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) President Mallikarjun Kharge. Speaking to newspersons, Kharge said Congress chief Sonia Gandhi has approved their induction into the party.
Interim president of the Congress party in Kerala M M Hassan has courted a controversy with his remarks that menstruation was impure and women should not enter temples during that period.
The new entrants will be welcomed into the party by All India Congress Committee general secretary Prithviraj Chavan in the KPCC office, party state general secretary M Ramachandrappa told PTI in Bangalore.
In a counter offensive after 13 MLAs resigned on Saturday dealing a blow to the 13-month-old government, a delegation of Congress leaders met Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar and submitted the petition seeking, under the anti-defection law, disqualification of the rebel legislators in line with the decision taken at a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party on Tuesday.
The Congress suggested there was cash stashed in the trunk.
The RSS leader said he had not violated any customs and claimed that he ascended the 18 steps carrying the sacred offerings.
The Lok Sabha constituencies that JD-S will contest are Uttara Kannada, Chikkamagaluru, Shivamogga, Tumkur, Hassan, Mandya, Bengaluru North and Vijayapura.
The Congress leadership has also asked its leaders not to make any public statements on sensitive issues.
"If the Opposition gets into singing praises, then democracy will be destroyed," Sharma said.
Congress leaders have hit out at the BJP governments at the Centre and in Karnataka, questioning its timing.
Trouble began when a group of Congress workers protested the presence of former KPCC general secretaries -- Sarthchandra Prasad and Rajmohan Unnithan -- in the party office premises.
The high command's choice of Thennala Balakrishna Pillai and Vayalar Ravi for the election to the Rajya Sabha appears to have prompted the resignation.
A case of attempt to murder was registered on Monday against Congress MLA J N Ganesh in connection with the alleged brawl with lawmaker colleague Anand Singh at a resort, police said.
The mortal remains of a jawan, who was found dead after a sting video on the "abuse" of buddy system in the army, were laid to rest in Kollam district of Kerala after a fresh autopsy was conducted following insistence of his family, who raised doubts over this demise.
The longest-serving state party president since October 2010, Parameshwara has remained a hardcore loyalist of the party ever since his political debut through the Congress.
The Congress high command on Thursday approved the list of its candidates for Lok Sabha polls in Kerala retaining all but two sitting MPs, including Union Ministers Shashi Tharoor and K V Thomas, giving a head start to the party in the campaign against rival Left Democratic Front.
Former Kerala minister T H Mustafa was on Thursday suspended from the Congress for calling Rahul Gandhi a "joker" and saying that the party vice-president should be removed if he does not resign in the backdrop of the party's debacle in the Lok Sabha polls.
The Congress unit described Ramesh's suicide an outcome of "targeted harassment" of their rank and cadre to keep them away from the party.
Stoking yet another controversy, the Bharatiya Janata Party in Kerala on Friday described social reformer and Dalit icon Sree Narayana Guru, who belonged to the backward Ezhava caste, as the greatest "Hindu sanyasi" the state has ever seen.
Congress Legislature Party leader and Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coordination committee chief Siddaramaiah said no one would leave the Congress and there was no disgruntlement either.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who inaugurated the celebrations, clarified that the Governor was not invited due to "protocol" issues.
The leaders alleged that those who had no contribution in the freedom struggle wanted to spread fear 'in the name of nationalism', suppress the voice of people and were questioning the legacy of Congress.
Kerala CM Oommen Chandy said the decision to exclude him from the function of unveiling of former CM R Sankar's statue at Kollam by PM Modi was a "painful experience".
The attack against the BJP worker, Santosh, took place when he was alone in his house at Andaloor in Dharmadam in Thalassery on Wednesday night.
The coalition government is on a shaky wicket with 16 MLAs -- 13 of the Congress and three of the Janata Dal-Secular -- resigning their assembly membership. Besides, two independent legislators, who were made ministers recently to provide stability, have quit the ministry and withdrawn support.
Deve Gowda indicated on Sunday that they were ready to compromise.
The ruling coalition had held out the threat of using the Whip against the wayward MLAs, citing the disqualification provision under the anti-defection law.
Hit by the "bar bribe controversy", the Congress-led United Democratic Front government in Kerala on Sunday announced a vigilance probe into the allegation by bar owners that state Finance Minister and Kerala Congress (M) supremo K M Mani had demanded a hefty sum for favourable decisions.
10 reasons why the Congress-JD-S government is on the brink of collapse.
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