Signalling a possible reshuffle in the Pinarayi Vijayan cabinet, State president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP-Sharad Pawar) P.. Chacko said the party’s national leadership has resolved to supplant Forest Minister A.K. Saseendran with the Kuttanad MLA, Thomas K Thomas, in the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government.
Mr Chacko told reporters that he, Mr Saseendran, and Mr Thomas would meet Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on October 3 and personally communicate national president Sharad Pawar’s decision.
Mr Thomas had recently publicly staked his claim to replace Mr Saseendran in the cabinet, stirring a rebellion in the NCP.
Subsequently, a delegation of NCP-SP leaders from Kerala led by Mr Chacko met Mr Pawar in Mumbai last week.
Mr Saseendran also said he would accept Mr Pawar’s decision. According to an LDF insider, if he relinquished his ministerial portfolio for Mr Thomas, Mr Saseendran could seek political accommodation as the NCP-SP State president.
A faction in the NCP had lobbied for Mr Thomas’s elevation to the cabinet to keep the Christian community in Alappuzha, a crucial electoral block, in the LDF fold ahead of the local body elections in 2025.
Moreover, the NCP hoped to retain the Kuttanad Assembly segment in the 2026 Kerala Legislative Assembly polls and calculated that Mr Thomas’s cabinet post could possibly help keep the constituency with the LDF in 2026.
Nevertheless, an LDF source said that Mr Vijayan would make the final call. Whether the Chief Minister would supplant Mr Saseendran with Mr Thomas for the remaining LDF term remained a matter of conjecture.
However, he pointed out that the CPI(M) has rarely rejected LDF partners’ demands for political accommodations to keep the alliance intact.
Given Mr Vijayan’s constitutional prerogative as Chief Minister, the LDF would discuss the possible reshuffle and leave the final decision to him.
With the Kerala Legislative Assembly convening on October 4, a cabinet reshuffle, if all, might be delayed.
Published – September 28, 2024 02:55 pm IST