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CHENNAI: After facing stiff competition from rival groups, B S Gnanadesikan emerged as the Congress high command’s choice as president of Tamil Nadu State unit.The appointment of Gnanadesikan, an acolyte of Union Shipping Minister G K Vasan, has marked the return of the top post to the latter’s fold after a hiatus of over 5 years.Considered to be the most influential Congress leader in terms of followers in Tamil Nadu, Vasan quit as the TNCC chief in February 2006 after assuming charge as Union minister of State for Statistics and Programme Implementation.On 17 November 2003, Vasan became the TNCC chief beating rivals E V K S Elangovan and S Balakrishnan. Elangovan and Balakrishnan were working president and president of the TNCC then.Elangovan’s supporters had then hoped that the high command would honour their leader with the top job for being instrumental in effecting the merger of the Vasan’s Tamil Manila Congress (TMC) and P Chidambaram’s Congress Jananayaga Peravai besides other smaller groups. However, Vasan demonstrated his clout by emerging as the winner. Since then, Vasan had always held the upper hand in party affairs. Party insiders say that the appointment of M Krishnaswamy in 2006 and K V Thangkabalu in 2009 as TNCC presidents were intended only to balance power equations in a huge party with many aspirants.Little wonder, Gnanadesikan with the full backing of his mentor Vasan crushed competition from other contenders including K S Alagiri of Chidambaram camp and Sudarsana Nachiappan.Notably, Gnanadesikan enjoys the reputation of being a polite, efficient and easily accessible leader even in the rival camps.TNCC’s expectations from the new leaderElangovan says the leader would get his all round support in his endeavours. Former Youth Congress chief, Dr MK Vishnuprasad lauds him as a leader who had risen from the grassroots level. Even those from the Chidambaram camp are happy. “He has very good relationship with both Minister Chidambaram and his son Karti Chidambaram. We hope he would embrace all sections,” says K Chiranjeevi, AICC member and Chidambaram loyalist.
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