Kanyakumari Congressmen put up brave face

NAGERCOIL: Senior leaders and MLAs of the district Congress met on Friday to elect a president in-charge for the East District in Nagercoil on Friday.What prompted the action was the desperate attempt of a fellow Congressman to make it to the post allegedly by fraudulent means. After the death of former Colachel MLA Jeya Paul, the Kanyakumari East District was functioning without a president. Some days ago, Robert Bruce declared himself as president of Kumari Congress East and tried to conduct a meeting at the district party office in Nagercoil. This was strongly objected to by the local Congressmen, who locked him up inside the party office. He was freed following police intervention.Bruce was nominated as the candidate for the Colachel Assembly constituency during the recently held Assembly election. Since local Congressmen objected to this, his nomination was cancelled by the party high command and in his stead, sitting MLA J G Prince was named. Prince won the elections.  In the meantime, MLAs of the Congress John Jacob of Killiyoor, J G Prince, Nagercoil municipal chairman Asokan Solomon and other senior party functionaries held a meeting at the district Congress party office in Nagercoil. After the meeting, Asokan Solomon said Bruce claimed to have received a letter from State office secretary Sadasiva Lingam. “The letter was forged and Bruce has not been appointed to the post by the State leadership,” revealed Solomon. “Therefore, with the consent of three Congress MLAs —Vijayadharani (Vilavancode), Prince (Colachel) and John Jacob (Killiyoor) and other senior party leaders from the district, we convened a meeting at the party office on Friday and decided to appoint senior vice-president of Kumari Congress East S Nagamoni as the president in-charge of Congress East District.“He will remain in the post till the party high command appoints a new president,” added Solomon.When asked about Bruce’s activities, Jacob said, “during the Assembly election too Bruce had indulged in forgery to make the party high command believe that he was the president of the Kumari Congress. Later, the high command came to know about this and cancelled his candidature. Now again, he has forged a letter and is trying to cheat the party cadre.” When Express tried to contact Bruce, his mobile phone was switched off.