KOCHI, JULY 7: Within hours of the departure of Kishore Chandra Deo and Rajasekhara Murthy, deputed by the Congress high command to prepare ground for holding the much-postponed organisational elections in Kerala -- a mission that once again failed to fructify -- the leaders of rival groups have resumed their war of words.Eight District Congress Committee presidents owing allegiance to the Karunakaran group, in a joint statement issued here on Saturday, held the Antony group responsible for the breakdown of talks, leading to further postponement of organisational elections.

The signatories to the statement included Kavyad Divakara Panicker (Thiruvananthapuram), K C Rajan (Kollam), N Mohankumar (Alappuzha), E M Augusty (Idukki), C N Balakrishnan (Thrissur), P Shankaran (Kozhikode), K Sudhakaran (Kannur) and V J Poulose (Ernakulam).They said the talks, convened by pradesh returning officer (PRO) Kishore Chandra Deo and his colleague Rajasekhara Murthy, failed to arrive at a consensus only because of the ``uncompromising attitude'' of the Antony group.``The Antony group's attitude smacked of a conspiracy to destroy the party.

They seemed to think that the group is more important than the party. They tried to mislead the Central representatives with `cooked up figures' concerning their strength when it was proposed that the block returning officers be appointed on the basis of the strength of rival groups,'' the signatories charged.The Antony group, which claims to have majority among the AICC/KPCC members, is silent on its followers among mandalam presidents and DCC members. ``Sixty per cent of 1,145 mandalam committees are with us,'' the Karunakaran group claimed.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.