Bihar rout triggers introspection in Congress in Kerala

Feeling from its crushing defeat in Bihar, the Congress appears to have found a strategic reset in Kerala with a renewed realisation within the state leadership that the party can no longer afford factional warfare if it hopes to return to power after two consecutive Assembly poll defeats.

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Senior leaders in the state, sources say, now agree that unless internal differences are buried once and for all, the Congress risks remaining in the Opposition for a third straight term.

Factional divisions have long defined the party’s organisational culture in Kerala — first during the era of K. Karunakaran and A.K. Antony, later through the Oommen Chandy-Ramesh Chennithala camps, and now through the split between Leader of the Opposition V. D. Satheesan’s group and the rival bloc led by former state unit chief K. Sudhakaran.