Revamp of Congress party in Kerala begins

Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 25 The state Congress party that received one of its worst ever electoral drubbing at the May assembly polls has begun a large scale revamp of the party's organisational structure, said Mukul Wasnik, Congress General Secretary in charge of the party's affairs in Kerala, on Sunday.

As the first step, all presidents of the 14 District Congress Committees (DCC) would be replaced at the earliest.

"Even though the results of the assembly polls came in May, we were not sitting idle, the process of revamp began in the month of June itself when party Vice-President Rahul Gandhi began his work for this," said Wasnik.

Wasnik took part in the first meeting of the newly constituted political affairs committee of the state Congress unit, which will oversee the functioning of the party in a cohesive manner.

The Congress party was hopeful that their government led by Oommen Chandy would return to power, but after it suffered one of its worst ever electoral reverses as just 22 out of the 87 party candidates won the assembly elections, and the Congress-led United Democratic Front ended up with just 47 seats in the 140-member Kerala assembly.

"The party leadership is united in the state and the new presidents of the 14 DCCs would be selected on the basis of their image and capability and not based on factional affiliations," added Wasnik.

The party in Kerala over the years has been a deeply divided unit with Chandy, Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala and state Congress President V.M.Sudheeran heading the three factions and till now every post and position at any level in the party has been shared between them.

IANS