Groups not required in Congress, unity need of hour, says Tharoor

Senior leader of the Congress and third-time MP from Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat, Shashi Tharoor has said that a unified party was the need of the hour and the petty group politics did not have any place in the state unit.Tharoor was addressing a function at Bodhigram in Pathanamthitta on Sunday. The former UN diplomat said the party needed to be united and there was no need for ‘A’ and ‘I’ groups in the Congress of Kerala. He was referring to the two prominent groups in the state Congress which have always been calling the shots in the party hierarchy.While former Chief Minister Oomen Chandy was leading the ‘A’ group, former state home minister, Ramesh Chennithala was heading ‘I’ group.He said that he was updating the respective District Congress Committee (DCC) presidents during his visit to the respective districts.Tharoor has drawn flak from several sections of senior Congress leaders, including state opposition leader V.D. Satheeshan that he had to intimate the respective DCC presidents on his visit to those districts. Kottayam DCC president Nattakam Suresh and Kozhikode DCC president, Praveen Kumar had said earlier that they did not know of Tharoor’s visit, and the DCC president’s not knowing about the visit of a senior leader in their respective districts was not in lieu of the organisational hierarchy. Joining issue with Nattakam Suresh, Kottayam DCC president, Tharoor said that his office had intimidated Kottayam DCC president of his visit, and added that there was proof as to who had called and when they had called.