Kerala - Kochi   

Governance to be hit for a week

Special Correspondent

KPCC State conference in Kochi

KOCHI: The State Government functioning will be affected for about a week beginning Thursday as the Chief Minister and his party colleagues in the Cabinet will be away from the capital to attend the KPCC's State conference in Kochi.

Mr. Oommen Chandy will arrive here on Thursday and will return to Thiruvananthapuram only after the crucial plenary meeting of the KPCC on March 7. During the whole duration of the Congress conference, which is considered very significant in view of the upcoming Assembly election, almost all Congress members of the State Cabinet will also be camping in Kochi. All party bigwigs, senior UDF leaders and heads of Government boards and corporations will be here.

The March 2 to 7 KPCC conference, reckoned as `historic' by the party leadership as it is being held after 18 years and in an atmosphere of unprecedented unity and inner-party peace, will be, as KPCC president Ramesh Chennithala put it, `a prelude to the Assembly election.'

By all counts, the conference will formulate a clear strategy for fighting the Assembly election, coming as it does after a series of electoral defeats for the Congress and the UDF.

New alliances, if any, will be decided and a vague idea of who would be the candidates and their constituencies would be available. A long-term policy agenda for the party would be worked on too.

The presence of Congress president Sonia Gandhi will add special significance to the conference and the pre-election preparations.

A large number of senior all-India party leaders and Union Ministers, such as Pranab Kumar Mukherjee and Ambika Soni, will be attending the conference. This is the largest gathering of so many Central leaders in Kerala in a long time.

Apart from party leaders and Union Ministers, a host of other Congress-friendly celebrities such as actor Govinda and technocrat Sam Pitroda, as well as writers and cultural activists are arriving for the conference.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Enrolment of priests: order reserved
KWA cracks down on illegal drawing of drinking water from pipelines
Corporation seeks EC's nod for presenting budget
Governance to be hit for a week
A fruitful visit
Folk arts show in Kochi
Cleanliness programme in limbo
Partial response to CPI(ML) hartal
Residents move court for water
Ravindran Award announced
Sex workers plan Parliament march
Around The City
In Kochi Today

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu