Kerala: KV Thomas defies Congress, to attend CPI(M) seminar in Kannur

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“It was up to the Congress to make a decision on me. I am a member of the AICC (All India Congress Committee) and it is up to the AICC to decide on whether I should be sacked or not. I am not going anywhere. I have been with the Congress for at least 50 years,” Thomas told the media in Kochi.

The Congress has so far not announced any action against Thomas even as the CPI(M) said that it would give political asylum for him. “He would not be left abandoned. The party would protect him,’’ said CPI(M) Kannur district secretary M V Jayarajan at the venue of the party congress.

Thomas, meanwhile, has not revealed his next political move, saying that “I would continue in Indian politics’’.

Referring to the seminar at the CPI(M) event, Thomas said: “These two topics — challenges of secularism and Centre and state relations — are of utmost importance in the present political scenario. In many states, non-Congress governments are ruling now. In all other states, except in Kerala, Congress has joined hands with other parties including CPI(M). I informed Sonia Gandhi of my intention to take part in the seminar in which I was invited by CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechuri. Later I came to know from the media that Congress MPs from Kerala urged Sonia Gandhi that permission should not be given to (Shashi) Tharoor. When I took up the matter again, I was told to keep away from the seminar,’’ he said.

Thomas has been sulking in the party after he was denied a seat contest in the Lok Sabha elections of 2019 and the assembly elections of 2021.

Referring to the denial of the seat in the 2019 general elections, Thomas said, “Of the 42 sitting MPs, only I was denied the seat. If my age was the issue, many other leaders older than me got tickets. How can the party deny the ticket saying that I had been a parliamentarian for several terms,’’ he said.

Thomas served as a member of Lok Sabha for five terms and a Union minister of agriculture and public distribution during the second United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre. He represented the Ernakulam constituency in the Lok Sabha throughout his terms in the Parliament. He was elected to the state assembly twice and became a minister for tourism and fisheries in the Congress government from 2001 to 2004.

Thomas won the assembly elections in 2006 too and later contested the general elections of 2009 and continued as an MP for the next decade. An AICC member since 1984, he rose to prominence in the party as a protégé of the late Congress veteran and former chief minister K Karunakaran. Later, he got closer to the party’s national president Sonia Gandhi.