THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Congress leadership has been caught napping over the incident in which a Congress worker S. Sanal Kumar died at Neyyatinkara on Monday night.
Party leaders and the AICC have pulled up the KPCC for not reacting properly to the incident. Though Sanal Kumar and his family are Congress supporters, it was the VSDP activists who called a hartal and road blockade at Neyyatinkara to protest against the matter.
It may be recalled that electrician Sanal Kumar, 32, a native of Kodangavila, Neyyatinkara, was hit by a car when Neyyatinkara DySP B. Hari Kumar pushed him down to the road following an altercation on Monday night. He died of the injuries at the hospital later.
Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala had demanded monetary benefits and a government job for his wife. Thiruvananthapuram DCC president Neyyatin-kara Sanal and Thiruvananthapuram MLA V. S. Sivakumar, who originally belongs to the neighbouring Parassala, had reached Sanal Kumar’s home only very late.
A Congress leader told DC that local leaders from his party did not rise up to the occasion. “There are more than a dozen DCC and KPCC leaders belonging to Neyyatinkara. Earlier, it was a Cong-ress citadel. When the local police with the help of the local CPM leadership wanted to make it appear that Sanal Kumar died of drunken driving, no Congress leader bothered to hold protests on Tuesday,” he said.
DC checked the Thiru-vananthapuram DCC off-ice-bearers’ list and fou-nd the following belon-ged to the same area as the deceased Sanal Kumar: Marayamuttam Suresh, Jose Franklin, Mohinudeen, M. R. Simon, B. Nirmala, Suma Kumari, Prana Kumar, Vinod Sen, B. Gopalakrishnan, Manchavilakam Jaya Kumar, Kakkad C. Ramachandran, M. Mah-endran and Tirupuram Gopan. There are two KPCC members from Neyyatinkara, S. K. Ashok Kumar and Vijayan Thomas. One of the block committees under Neyyatinkara Assembly constituency has a block member, Venpakal Avaneendra Kumar.
There are mandalam presidents as well as feeder organisation leaders belonging to the Youth Congress, Mahila Congress and KSU, former MLAs Thampanoor Ravi and R. Selvaraj as well as UDF district chairman Solomon Alex. Sanal Ku-mar’s wife Viji’s father is also the Congress block president at Neyyatinkara.
