Kerala Polls 2021: Senior Congress Leader PC Chacko Resigns, Says 'High Command Incapable Of Ending Factionalism'

Senior leader PC Chacko on Wednesday announced to quit the party. In his resignation letter to party's interim chief Sonia Gandhi, Chacko cited the factionalism within the party and said it was difficult to work here. 

Image: ANI/Twitter

New Delhi: The Congress party on Wednesday suffered a big setback ahead of the upcoming Kerala Assembly polls as senior leader PC Chacko announced to quit the party.

As reported by news agency ANI, PC Chacko said, "I have quit Congress and sent my resignation to party's interim chief Sonia Gandhi."

In his resignation letter to Gandhi, Chacko cited the factionalism within the party and said it was difficult to work here.

"I worked hard for the party, but it is really difficult to work with the Kerala Congress team. I stood with every decision taken by Congress, but it's now very difficult. You can't run a party with one central character," Chacko said.

After resigning from the party, PC Chacko slammed Kerala Congress leadership alleging it of functioning between two distinct groups. He alleged that the assembly seats for the approaching polls are being squandered among the two sections. 

Chacko also criticised the party for not being able to find a party president for over a year.  

"I have been delebrating on this for so many days, Groupism is a biggest problem in Kerala, I was continuously asking an end to this from the high command but they didn't do anything. There are two groups. High command is just mute spectator," he added. 

There are 140 seats and polling for all the seats will be held in single phase on April 6 and results will be announced  along with the rest of the states on May 2, 2021. Pinarayi Vijayan is currently the Chief Minister of Kerala. The state currently has a Left coalition government.

In the 2016 Kerala assembly election, United Democratic Front (UDF) got 47 seats and LDF won after gaining a majority of 91 seats.