Last week, Higher Education Minister R. Bindu had accused Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala, MLA, of endeavouring to claw back his "bygone organisational import" from the incumbent leadership of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) and Congress Legislative Party (CLP) by disparaging the government relentlessly in an, arguably, vain bid to hog the political limelight.
Ms. Bindu's acerbic remark came soon after the Kerala Lok Ayukta had discharged her of the corruption charges raised by Mr. Chennithala. The former Opposition leader had accused Ms. Bindu of "pressurising" Governor Arif Mohammed Khan to extend the Kannur University Vice Chancellor's tenure beyond the retirement age.
Seemingly buoyed by the Lok Ayukta's exoneration, Ms. Bindu alleged that Mr. Chennithala was trying to be one up on his party peers.
On Sunday, as if affirming Ms. Bindu's "unflattering" perspective about Mr. Chennithala's present-day political "predicament", some television news channels aired anonymously sourced reports that Mr. Chennithala had faced strident criticism in the Congress for jumping the gun and announcing party policy and Assembly strategy sans consultations or the KPCC leadership's concurrence.
Mr. Chennithala appeared to have triggered the "media speculation" by declaring on Saturday in Alappuzha that he would spearhead a resolution in the Assembly rejecting the executive order signed into law last week by Mr. Khan.
Mr. Chennithala was among the top Congress leaders at the vanguard of the Opposition's strident campaign against the government's purported move to defang the Lok Ayukta to allegedly "rescue" Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan from prosecution in corruption cases.
A senior Congress leader said that, with hindsight, Ms. Bindu's attack on Mr. Chennithala's combative style of holding the government to account was the precursor of an uncoiling ruling front plot to drive a wedge between the CLP leaders ahead of the predictably "stormy" budget session of the Assembly.
He said former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and former KPCC presidents Mullappally Ramachandran, V. M. Sudheeran and Mr. Chennithala have a "limited licence" to air their sometimes varying points of view, given their political stature.
KPCC president K. Sudhakaran pointedly termed the media "conjecture" as baseless. He said the KPCC would investigate the source of the fake news. He claimed that no leader had raised any grouse about Mr. Chennithala so far.
