Abhilash Chandran By

Express News Service

KOTTAYAM: Yielding to immense pressure from the Catholic Church hierarchy and other supportive groups to settle the internal squabbles in Kerala Congress (M), the divergent groups led by P J Joseph and Jose K Mani are likely to sit for reconciliatory talks sooner than later.

As a primary step, MPs and MLAs will discuss various formulae to iron out the differences in an unofficial meeting soon. Though there was a plan to convene the first unofficial meeting of the MPs and MLAs on Wednesday, it is likely to be delayed as no initiative was taken from either side in that direction.

At the same time, the Jose K Mani faction is unhappy that Joseph was trying to portray the unofficial meeting as the official parliamentary meeting of the party.

“There is no plan to convene a parliamentary party meeting before electing the chairman. This is only an unofficial meeting as part of the efforts to arrive at a consensus on electing the chairman and parliamentary party leader. Its date and place have not been finalised so far,” said a leader of the Jose faction. It is learnt that Jose mooted the idea of convening an informal meeting taking into account the advice from three Bishops, a former head of CBCI and other organisations, including Nair Service Society (NSS).

However, it seems settlement may be further delayed as both factions are still adamant on their stance. Meanwhile, as part completing the formalities before initiating any drastic steps, Jose faction leaders handed over a letter to acting chairman P J Joseph, deputy chairman C F Thomas and vice chairman Jose K Mani, urging them to convene the meeting of the party state committee at the earliest to elect the new chairman.

The letter, which was handed over to Joseph by MLAs Roshy Augustine and N Jayaraj, was signed by 127 state committee members, which comes above one-fourth of the total members in the committee. As per section 11 of the party constitution, the chairman should convene the state committee if one-fourth of members come up with such a demand. The signatories expressed their concern that the delay in electing the party chairman has created political and organisational crisis in the party, at a time when national and state politics are going through crucial situations.

According to Jose faction leaders, they submitted the letter in the wake of the leadership continuously ignoring the demands to democratically elect the new chairman by convening a meeting of the state committee.

The leadership has not taken any initiative in this regard even after the direction of the Assembly Speaker. As per the insiders in the party, senior leaders and the Church leadership are dissatisfied with the unfriendly stance taken by Joseph towards the reconciliation initiatives.