Murali, Padmaja skip unveiling function of leader’s statue

THRISSUR: Chief Minister Oommen Chandy unveiled the full-size statue of leader K Karunakaran in the district. The leader’s son K Muraleedharan and daughter Padmaja Venugopal skipped the function. KPCC chief Ramesh Chennithala, Minister C N Balakrishnan, MLAs Therambil Ramakrishnan, Thomas Unniyadan, mayor I P Paul and many others attended the function.  

Murali and Padmaja skipped the function as the district DCC president post was given to the I Group. A parallel DCC was also formed in the district

Murali,VD Satheesan denied ministry

Saturday, May 21, 2011: The names of prominent leaders like K Muraleedharan and VD Satheeshan were missing when the list of Congress Ministers to the Oommen Chandy cabinet were announced here on Saturday.

PK Jayalakshmi, the lone women Congress MLA has been provided ministerial berth along with KC Joseph, Aryadan Muhammad, Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, Adoor Prakash, AP Anil Kumar, CN Balakrishnan, K Babu and V.S Shivakumar.

Responding to the official declaration of Ministers, Muraleedharan said that he already knew that he would not be provided with ministerial berth in the Chandy cabinet. Speaking to the reporters here, Murali added that he hoped that the UDF ministry would complete their five year term.

Earlier speaking to the media at the KPCC headquarters, CM admitted that many deserving personalities could not be included in the list of ministers, owing to the minimum number of ministers that the party can accommodate.

The list of Congress Ministers was finalized after discussion held between Chandy and Congress president Sonia Gandhi at New Delhi on Friday. The official declaration on the Speaker post would be made tomorrow likely. The nine Congress Ministers will assume office after the swearing in ceremony which would be held at Raj Bhavan on May 23rd, Chandy added.