Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 21 A video purportedly showing Congress veteran K Sudhakaran expressing resentment over his removal as KPCC president and criticising the party and the state government surfaced on Wednesday, days after the KPCC president Sunny Joseph’s warning against airing differences in public.
In the video, Sudhakaran, a former Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president and the Lok Sabha MP from Kannur, said he was deeply hurt by his removal from the party’s top post in the state without any valid reason.
The PTI could not independently verify the authenticity of the video circulated on social media.
He purportedly claimed in the video that he had led the Congress through difficult circumstances and paved the way for major electoral victories, adding that the party’s achievements under his leadership were a matter of history.
Sudhakaran said he was saddened by the moves allegedly made by a group of people to remove him from the KPCC Chief post without justification.
Referring to his fight against political violence in Kannur, he said his remarks were based on his personal experiences and were not driven by personal animosity, but by opposition to a political culture in which human lives were destroyed in the name of politics.
“Governments come and go, and power changes hands,” he appeared to say in the video.
But the party’s self-respect should not be sacrificed for power, he said without naming anyone.
The veteran warned that disregarding the sacrifices of those who had shed blood for the party and stood by it during difficult times would not benefit the Congress.
Sudhakaran also said that pointing out a government’s mistakes was not solely the responsibility of the opposition, and that members of the ruling dispensation should have the courage to question wrongdoing from within.
Without naming anyone, he purportedly said the government needed genuine fighters who could point out mistakes rather than people who merely praised it.
The video surfaced two days after Sunny Joseph warned party leaders against making contentious statements in public, saying such remarks would benefit neither the individuals concerned nor the organisation.
His warning came amid criticism within the Congress over the alleged delay in registering an FIR against CPI(M) veteran Pinarayi Vijayan in the alleged CMRL bribery case and UDF convener Adoor Prakash’s criticism of Chief Minister V D Satheesan.
The Congress had initiated organisational changes in its Keralam unit by appointing Sunny Joseph as the chief in place of K Sudhakaran and naming three new working presidents in May last year.
(PTI News)
