Congress confident of defeating no-trust motion in Thrikkakara

Party block president denies reports of five councillors not accepting whip

The district Congress party leadership has exuded confidence that the no-confidence motion being moved by the Opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) against Thrikkakara municipal Chairperson Ajitha Thankappan will not succeed as the party councillors as well as four rebel Congress councillors have decided to stay away from the discussion on the motion to be taken up on September 23.

The Congress parliamentary party had decided early last week to settle any inter-party issues on September 26 in the wake of the no-confidence motion being moved by the LDF. Congress block president Noushad Pallechi said the first priority would be for defeating the no-confidence motion. He said reports in a section of the press about five Congress councillors not accepting the party whip to stay away from the motion discussions were exaggerated and that all of them would accept the whip.

He also said that four rebel councillors had decided to support the United Democratic Front (UDF) on the issue and that the UDF council had the support of 25 councillors in the 43-member council, including five councillors from the UDF constituent Muslim League. Initially, sixteen Congress party councillors had said they would stay away from the discussions and later five of the Muslim League councillors and the four Congress rebel councillors too decided to stay away from the discussion.

The no-confidence motion may not be taken up for discussion if there is no quorum in the council and it will take another six months before a similar motion can be considered by the Opposition.

The Opposition LDF has the support of 18 councillors, including a rebel. It will take twenty-two councillors to form the quorum for any discussion on the no-confidence motion against the Chairperson.

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