Tamil Nadu state Cong chief quits

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 25

Nearly a month after the Congress faced a severe drubbing in the Tamil Nadu elections, state party chief EVKS Elangovan resigned from his post on Saturday amid reports of party general secretary in-charge of the state Mukul Wasnik too being in trouble.

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Elangovan, who was appointed state Congress president in 2014, was held responsible for Congress’ poor show at the hustings recently. The party managed to win only eight out of 41 seats it had negotiated in alliance with the DMK which, on the contrary, won 50 per cent of the seats it contested. The Tamil Nadu Assembly has the strength of 235 members.

It is further learnt that Elangovan faced acute opposition from the camp led by former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram who had personally also raised concerns about the state chief’s style of functioning in internal party meetings.

A senior Tamil Nadu Congress leader today said, “Elangovan was not getting along with anyone. P Chidambaram was unhappy with him and so were past state Congress presidents. Also, he chose the losing seats for the Congress when we were negotiating the arrangement with the DMK.”

“He got 31 out of 41 seats for his supporters and won just about one. In many seats he put up candidates who were going to be evident losers,” another state Congress leader said when asked what went against Elangovan who had been TN Congress chief for just two years when the normal tenure of a president is three years.

Sources added that Elangovan was asked to put in his papers to pave the way for replacement soon as Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi returned from his trip abroad.

Meanwhile, Mukul Wasnik, the Congress general secretary in-charge of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, may also be in trouble with sources saying he could be likely replaced. In the last assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, the Congress had won five seats out of 63 it had contested. This year it had hoped to do much better than it did.

But insiders say Elangovan should have been replaced much earlier for Congress prospects to improve in Tamil Nadu, where the party has been in decline since 1967. “When there was enough evidence of the state chief not getting along with anyone and functioning unilaterally, what was the high command waiting for?”asked a state leader, ruing slow decision-making in the party.

Elangovan was installed as Congress chief in Tamil Nadu after previous president B.S. Gnanadesikan quit the party to join G.K. Vasan’s Tamil Manila Congress.