With senior Congress leader and the party’s Maharashtra in-charge Ramesh Chennithala addressing a key event hosted by the Nair community’s Nair Service Society (NSS) Thursday as the chief guest, the power struggle within the Congress Kerala unit is likely to be reignited. For Chennithala, attending the 148th birth anniversary celebrations of NSS founder Mannathu Padmanabhan meant putting an end to the decade-long strained relations he has had with the influential outfit. “I reckon this is a rare privilege. The NSS has given me refuge at critical moments of my life and is a noble brand of secularism,” Chennithala said in his keynote address at the celebrations, held at the NSS’s headquarters in Changanassery. Relations between the NSS and Chennithala turned sour in 2013 during former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s rein, after the organisation’s general secretary, G Sukumaran Nair, openly demanded that Chennithala be given a key position in the state government. Chennithala, then the state Congress chief, was subsequently inducted into the Cabinet and handed the key Home Department, but he denounced the NSS leader’s appeal as a bid to portray him as merely a leader of the Nair community. The NSS picking Chennithala as the chief guest has also triggered speculation about his return to steer the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) in time for the Kerala Assembly polls next year. As an MLA, Chennithala had once led an anti-Chandy faction within the Congress. However, since his removal as Leader of the Opposition (LoP) following the UDF’s defeat in the 2021 Assembly polls (the front's second successive loss to the LDF), Chennithala’s political career has seen a downward spiral. At present, he is only a permanent invitee to the CWC, a position he held back in 2004. Even as Chennithala's career has stalled, fellow Nair leaders, most of them once his loyalists, have seen spikes in their political fortunes. Apart from Chennithala, current LoP V D Satheesan, AICC general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal (who is seen as very close to the Congress high command), Congress Working Committee member and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor, and former state Congress chief K Muraleedharan are also Nairs. Over the last four years, Satheesan is seen to have consolidated his position within the party, and is among the top runners in the race to be the UDF’s face in next year’s Assembly polls. Venugopal and Tharoor, meanwhile, have carved their niche in national politics. The NSS’s overture to Chennithala may now be a tilting factor. It could also create unease within senior Nair leaders of the Congress, just like it did when Tharoor expressed interest to dabble in Kerala politics two years ago. In what could be the immediate fallout of the new bonhomie, Chennithala could also eclipse Satheesan’s chances. Sources close to Chennithala are also happy at the NSS development as the Nair outfit has had tepid relations with Satheesan, who in 2021 criticised the community's organisations for “meddling in party affairs”. Last month, Satheesan also came under flak from powerful backward Hindu outfit Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SDPM) general secretary Vellappally Natesan, who termed him “an embodiment of arrogance”. “He acts as if he is the king as well as the kingdom,” Natesan said.
