The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee suffers another blow within a week as one more top leader has shifted the camp days ahead of the assembly elections. Former Kerala Congress leader Vijayan Thomas, who was a general secretary in the party, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in New Delhi on Friday.
At an event yesterday, Thomas took a swipe at his former party, alleging factionalism in the grand old party’s state unit. News agency ANI quoted Thomas saying "The Congress party in Kerala is divided into two groups. These two groups have two leaders. You have to be with them or loyal with them, only then you will be considered."
According to the reports, Thomas further claimed that that many people are upset by this atmosphere in the party. PC Chacko too left for the same reason.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Vijayan Thomas, KPCC General Secretary who resigned from the post a few days ago, joins BJP family.<br>The political space in Kerala is becoming BJP centric. <a >pic.twitter.com/49drX7fLlj</a></p>— BJP KERALAM (@BJP4Keralam) <a >March 12, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The development has come just two days after senior leader PC Chacko quit the party citing factionalism within the party. In his resignation letter to Gandhi, Chacko said it is really difficult to work with the Kerala Congress team. He 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.
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.