Sharad Pawar calls top Kerala NCP leaders to Mumbai

Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 18 (IANS): NCP-SP national President Sharad Pawar has asked top leaders of the Kerala unit of his party to come to Mumbai for a meeting to be held on Friday.

In Kerala, the NCP-SP is part of the ruling CPI-M-led Left Democratic Front.

The primary reason for this meeting is to settle the rumblings in the state unit over a cabinet berth for its legislator Thomas K. Thomas.

NCP in Kerala has two legislators - A.K.Saseendran, who is the state Forest Minister, and Thomas.

Since November last year, affairs in the party's Kerala unit have been turbulent after Thomas put his foot down, demanding the earlier decided formula where Saseendran will step down after two and half years and Thomas will take over as minister.

But while two other LDF constituents who have just one legislator made way for two other parties having just one legislator, Saseendran did not make way for Thomas.

At that point in time, state NCP-SP President and former Congress leader P.C. Chacko was siding with Saseendran, but he has now shifted his position and is now with Thomas.

Saseendran, however, dismissed that he was moving out and also dismissed any agreement of his making way for Thomas. When the pressure mounted from his party, he threatened that he would quit as a legislator if he was removed as a minister.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has also expressed his displeasure and that was how Pawar decided to play the trouble shooter’s role.

Thomas is the brother of late former state minister Thomas Chandy who passed away in 2019.

Chandy was an NRI businessman-turned-legislator and because he was busy with his business interests in Kuwait, it was Thomas who was always looking after the Kuttanadu Assembly constituency in Alappuzha district. The NCP did not have to look elsewhere for the 2021 Assembly polls and on expected lines Thomas won the seat. However, when Vijayan constituted the Cabinet in 2021, the NCP decided to stick with outgoing Minister Saseendran for another turn.

Meanwhile, Thomas appears confident that he is certain to get the prized post of a state minister, to pacify Saseendran he will be asked to take on the president’s post of the Kerala NCP and Chacko is expecting to get a top national-level party post.