A growing feeling that Congress high command passed over senior leader Ramesh Chennithala for a Congress Working Committee (CWC) seat has reportedly triggered palpable bitterness in the I-group that arguably commands considerable heft at the party’s grassroots level.
Moreover, I-group loyalists suggested that Congress accommodated strident critics of the party in the CWC while side-lining Mr. Chennithala, who had “never deviated from the high command’s line”.
Mr. Chennithala has brushed away imputations that the high command had side-lined him for relatively junior candidates, including Sashi Tharoor, MP, and AICC general secretary K.C. Venugopal and, instead, dished out a permanent invitee post he held 19 years before.
