Newly appointed District Congress Committee (DCC) president B. Babu Prasad, who inherited a Congress party in Alappuzha down and dejected, has his task cut out. Losing one election after another, the Congress has been on a downhill trajectory since the 2016 Assembly polls.
The party, which got trounced in the 2020 local body polls and 2021 Assembly elections, remains a disunited force due to infighting and mud-slinging. Two weeks ago, Congress leader and former Alappuzha municipal chairperson Illikkal Kunjumon was expelled from the Congress following allegations that he had tried to defeat the party candidate in the Ambalappuzha Assembly constituency.
Mr. Prasad, considered close to former Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala, has to bring the disparate elements together and instil confidence among workers in a bid to make the party battle-ready.
“My job is to revive the party in Alappuzha,” says Mr. Prasad, whose name cropped up to the post of DCC president at the last moment over-riding the name of K.P. Sreekumar. Unlike in other districts, his appointment has not met with vehement opposition at least in the open.
“It is a fact that the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) fared poorly by losing eight out of the nine Assembly seats in the 2016 and 2021 polls. When the UDF won 19 of the 20 seats in 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress lost the Alappuzha constituency. My priority is to prepare the party for the 2024 general elections. We have to do a lot of work at different levels to make it happen,” he says.
The Congress party has no functioning units especially at the grassroots level in several places. Some of its strongholds, for instance, the Chengannur Assembly constituency, have turned out to be most tenuous. “We started to lose polls after party units became inactive. It is important to revive units at all levels. In places where we do not have units, I will go and camp there to revive the party,” Mr. Prasad says, while hinting that party units, including DCC, block, and mandalam committees, would be reconstituted soon.
As the Congress aims for a comeback in Alappuzha, its primary opponent remains the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front. But the party cannot turn a blind eye towards the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, which is increasing its footprint across the district.
