The Hindu : Front Page : Krishnaswamy new State Congress chief

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Feb 16, 2006

Front Page

Front Page

Krishnaswamy new State Congress chief

Anita Joshua and S. Vydhianathan

The appointment counters former Congress chief's criticism of the party being anti-Vanniyar

Anita Joshua and

S. Vydhianathan

New Delhi/ Chennai: Ahead of the Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday appointed M. Krishnaswamy Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president in place of G. K. Vasan, who was inducted into the Union Council of Ministers last month.

She has constituted a 16-member Election Committee for the State with Mr. Vasan as the chairman and a 53-member Coordination Committee, which the PCC president will chair.

With Mr. Krishnaswamy's appointment, the Congress hopes to counter former PCC president Tindivanam Ramamurthy's criticism of the party being anti-Vanniyar.

Mr. Krishnaswamy belongs to the Vanniyar community. Another plus point is that he is not aligned with any faction in the State unit and can "carry with him" all segments.

The Election Committee includes Congress Legislature Party leader S. R. Balasubramanian, Union Ministers P. Chidambaram, Mani Shankar Aiyar and E. V. K. S. Elangovan, and party spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan. All of them have been included in the Coordination Committee too.

Mr. Krishnaswamy's appointment has set in motion speculation about a change of guard in the Youth Congress unit, headed by his son, Vishnu Prasad. A front-runner for the post is Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram's son Karti Chidambaram.

The high command has only tried to placate the Vanniya community by appointing Mr. Krishnaswamy as the new TNCC chief, according to party leaders here. Party leaders of the Vanniyar community felt that the community had been systematically sidelined. The Pattali Makkal Katchi, an ally, had taken away most seats in the northern Vanniyar belt. According to the community leaders, due representation was not accorded to the community in the selection of All-India Congress Committee members. This led to open revolt by former TNCC president Tindivanam K.Ramamurthy, who had been carrying out a campaign against the high command and the TNCC.

Mr.Krishnaswamy, a veteran Congressman, was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Vandavasi constituency in 1991.

He was defeated in the subsequent election. Father-in-law of the Union Health Minister R.Anbumani, Mr.Krishnaswamy owed his political career to his father-in-law K.Vinayagam, who was the whip of the Congress Legislature Party from 1967 to 1971.

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