Rahul Gandhi offers olive branch to Kerala leader Chennithala

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday met Kerala party leader Ramesh Chennithala as part of attempts to pacify him after he recently registered protest with party president Sonia Gandhi about the manner he was removed as the leader of opposition in the state assembly.

While there are indications that Chennithala is being offered a role in the Congress central leadership either as a CWC member or as an AICC general secretary, the Kerala leader said he would be “happy to work as an ordinary Congress worker”.

After their meeting in Delhi, Chennithala said he shared certain “issues and apprehensions” with Gandhi and “I am now fully satisfied” with his responses.


Apart from registering his reservations about the manner the new Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) chief and the Congress legislative party leader were appointed, Chennithala is also learnt to have pressed with Gandhi for adequate representation for his “I Group” nominees in the upcoming PCC/DCC reconstitution in Kerala, and proper internal discussions henceforth before taking policy and organisational decisions.

Gandhi is slated to reach out to former Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy next over phone by late on Friday or Saturday. Chandy, leader of ‘A Group’ in Congress in Kerala, too, is unhappy post-reshuffle.

The party high command is worried about the post-reshuffle rifts in the Congress unit of Kerala which Rahul Gandhi represents in Lok Sabha.