Thiruvananthapuram: The Congress leaders’ heartbeats have increased over the last several weeks. They need to get a nomination to contest elections first and then a favourable report on their prospects by the AICC-appointed agency.
AICC treasurer Motilal Vora has roped in an agency speculated to be the Hyderabad-based research organisation engaged in social and political research - People’s Pulse.
KPCC leadership has got the report that a 50-member team from the independent agency is touring the state. A prominent Congress legislator said the People’s Pulse had conducted similar surveys in Assam, Bihar, Kashmir and Madhya Pradesh.
“We believe that it is the same agency which has come here. But we don’t know anything more as they are undertaking survey discreetly without taking the local leaders into confidence to produce a reliable report on the chances of UDF returning to power,” he told DC.
A top AICC leader said the outcome of the survey would be known early next month, and he doesn’t know further details. He said the AICC leadership is hopeful of the UDF coming back to power but was worried about the bickering within the Congress.
“Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and KPCC president V. M. Sudheeran are at loggerheads over nominations. Mr Chandy should not have given sanction to the Karuna Plantations towards the fag end of his government. Similarly, Mr Sudheeran should have taken up the issue with Mr Chandy in private rather than going to town,” he told DC.
But another KPCC office bearer said AICC had initiated similar surveys in the 2011 Assembly elections and also before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, and nothing happened.
“Though the AICC appointed survey team had given reports against local leaders, still they contested the elections due to the backing of groups. Take the case of V. T. Balram, Shafi Parambil and P. K. Jayalakshmy, who all had fought the elections under the banner of Youth Congress. Their names were not even on the initial list and due to the intervention of vice-president Rahul Gandhi, they contested and won,” he told DC.
