The days of unwieldy organisational structure and delegate-packed party forums are over for Kerala Congress factions.
Aimed at positioning themselves to play a greater role than ever, the two leading factions of the Kerala Congress, which have been locked in a fierce turf war in Central Travancore, are currently engrossed in a serious exercise of revamping their respective parties.
While the revamped State committee of the Kerala Congress led by P.J. Joseph will come into being in August, the Kerala Congress(M) led by Jose K. Mani is expected to complete the process by June.
Interestingly, both the factions had their previous organisational election in April 2018 during their co-existence as a single party within the United Democratic Front (UDF).
The organisational elections in the Kerala Congress follows a merger of the Joseph group with the Kerala Congress faction led by P.C. Thomas in April last year. Significantly, the reorganisation move was announced at a time when the regional party seemed drifting towards yet another phase of infighting.
“The new party constitution provides for the post of 55 general secretaries as against 68 earlier. After the revamp, this number is most likely to be limited to below 30,” said Joy Abraham, secretary-general of the party.
Considering the COVID-19 situation, the party has extended its membership campaign till April 30 and the final list of party members will be released on May 31. The ward-level and mandal-level (panchayat) level elections will be held in July, followed by the election of Assembly committees the next month.
The district committees will come into effect in August and the newly elected State committee will come into existence on August 24.
“The first meeting of the State committee and the election of its office-bearers will be held on September 3,” Mr. Abraham said.
The KC(M), on the other hand, has already got the ball rolling and brought down the size of party committees. It has cut down the number of party steering committee to 91 from 111, while the State general secretaries have been reduced to 15 from 25.
As to the revamp, the party has already completed the second phase with the completion of ward-level and mandalam-level elections. It is now slated to complete the elections to its Assembly segment committees by April 30.
“The next phase will begin immediately after the event marking the third death anniversary of party founder K.M. Mani on April 9. The entire process will come to an end with the election of a new State committee within June,” said a senior KC(M) leader.
