A day after he raised allegations that his opponents in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) were conspiring to murder him, NCP leader and MLA Thomas K. Thomas was removed from the working committee of the party on Tuesday.
NCP president Sharad Pawar in a letter addressed to Mr. Thomas cited “serious indiscipline” committed by the Kuttanad MLA for taking the disciplinary action.
Mr. Thomas on Monday lodged a complaint with State Police Chief Sheikh Darvesh Sahib alleging that former NCP working committee member Reji Cherian had hatched a conspiracy to kill him with the help of Thomas Kuruvila, who was the MLA’s driver until a few months ago. Mr. Thomas who is at loggerheads with the State NCP leadership said the plan was to eliminate him and facilitate a bypoll in the Kuttanad Assembly constituency.
‘Discredited image’
Terming the allegations baseless, State leaders of the NCP took up the matter with the party supremo. In the letter, Mr. Pawar noted that Mr. Thomas openly defied the authority of the NCP national and State presidents and made irresponsible allegations against party members, and filed false complaints. The NCP chief said the ruling front MLA had “discredited the image of the party in public and in the Left Democratic Front (LDF).”
The NCP State unit has been witnessing factional feud for some time now with Mr. Thomas and NCP State president P.C. Chacko engaged in a bitter fight over various issues. The latest sparring between the two leaders was over the appointment of the party Alappuzha district president.
The Kuttanad MLA recently claimed that he would become a Minister in the Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF government as per an earlier decision to rotate the ministership among the party MLAs midway into the government’s tenure. The NCP’s lone ministerial berth in the LDF government is held by Forest Minister A.K. Saseendran. The NCP State leadership is learnt to be not in favour of recommending Mr. Thomas for the Cabinet berth. The party leadership, however, has not publicly commented on rotating the ministership.
