THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Ramesh Chennithala left the Cantonment House with the satisfaction that he was a strong leader of the opposition. He was credited with bringing to public attention the allegations that dragged the government into defense. However, social and political circumstances hampered his journey to the CM's post. The organizational shortcomings of his own party and front also contributed to this.

When Oommen Chandy became the leader of the Congress in the Assembly in 2004, High Command brought Ramesh Chennithala from Delhi to Kerala to lead the state party. As he was the KPCC president, he took the organization forward actively. After the re-division of the constituencies, the UDF somehow managed to come to power in the 2011 assembly elections.

By 2016, the UDF, which had been rocked by allegations, collapsed in the elections. Only 22 MLAs Congress managed to win the election. Despite being in the opposition for 5 years, the organizational structure of the Congress was not able to overcome that impact.

The glittering victory in the Lok Sabha elections added to laziness. This is what the High Command is now accusing of being overconfident. The leaders had the challenge of raising the number of seats from 22 to 50.

As the Leader of the Opposition, Ramesh had repeatedly raised allegations against the government. It all started with exposing the move to allow breweries and distilleries. However, the government withdrew from this move very soon. Later, he came out against the government's contract with the American company Sprinklr for personal data collection during the pandemic. It became a major political upheaval. When the controversy over gold smuggling heated up, he continued to make allegations against the government. Just before the election, the government was put on the defensive when Chennithala came up with crucial information regarding the deep sea fishing contract with EMCC. He hoped to get credit for all this in the election. But it must be assumed that he was not aware of the depth of the organizational weakness of the party.

Congress failed to take note of the welfare work done by the government and the CPM at the grassroots level during the COVID crisis. On the other hand, the party leadership created uncertainty over the question of who would be the next Chief Minister. Ramesh Chennithala's camp and the I Group leadership felt that he had been humiliated and expelled from the party leadership.

Everyone is wondering how Chennithala will work in the future. Will he continue in the Assembly in silence as Oommen Chandy did last time?