‘A’ group upset over raw deal

Thiruvananthapuram: The ‘A’ group leaders in the Congress are upset over the raw deal they have received in the selection of the AICC members from the state. They are of the view that many of the senior ‘A’ group leaders have been avoided in the list.Senior leaders like K C Abu from Kozhikode and Thampanoor Ravi from Thiruvananthapuram were ignored. Ravi has been included as a selected invitee who has no voting right. Interestingly, both these leaders were the signatories in the nomination for Shashi Tharoor in the AICC president election.Another prominent omission they point out is former KSU president K M Abhijith who was the youngest AICC member in the last plenary session. Former MLA K S Sabarinathan has also been excluded. Both these leaders were also the signatories for Tharoor.But the ‘A’ group feels that their leaders have been omitted from most of the districts and there was no consultation with them during the selection of the AICC members. The leaders who have been included from their group other than the MPs and MLAs are K C Joseph and E M Augusthy.The ‘A’ group is of the view that leaders who are supporting K Sudhakaran, K C Venugopal and ‘I’ group leaders got the better share than them. “There was no discussion on the list with any of our leaders. Even our leader Oommen Chandy was kept in the dark before preparing the list,” said a prominent ‘A’ group leader.Other than the senior leaders, MPs and MLAs, those who figured in the list with voting rights are K P Dhanapalan, K C Joseph, P K Jayalekshmi, V P Sajeendran, V S Sivakumar, Joseph Vazhakkan, E M Augusthy, Shanimol Usman, V T Balram, Sooranadu Rajashekaran, Padmaja Venugopal, Deepthi Mary Varghese, Bindhu Krishna and Fathima Rosna.
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