Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 28 (IANS): It's been a while since the Congress high command has been trying to finalise the names of chiefs in its 14 district Committee, and several deadlines have gone by, but there seems to be no sign of the final list.

The simple reason for the delay is there are only 14 posts in the offing but the contenders are more. Over a dozen state leaders including Oommen Chandy, Ramesh Chennithala, State party chief K. Sudhakaran, Leader of Opposition V.D. Satheesan, AICC general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal, veteran Congress MP Kodikunnil Suresh and a few others are trying to push through their handpicked nominees to the post.

A media critic on condition of anonymity said the problem with the Congress party in Kerala is that none of the leaders wants to go in for an election for any posts in the state unit of the party for obvious reasons.

"This has been the practice and none of the leaders want a change to it because, if it happens, they will lose. The latest report is that a section of the leaders here feels they have been sidelined by the high command after the April 6th poll debacle and both Satheesan and Sudhakaran were picked by the high command. Rahul Gandhi is also unhappy with the way the top brass here are trying to scuttle things. It's heard that Sonia Gandhi will soon speak to the estranged top brass here before the list is released," said the critic.

The duo of Chandy and Chennithala, who for long have been running their own factions, today are a pale shadow of what they were in the past and now they operate under the policy of 'enemies' enemy is a friend' and are in unison to see that Satheesan and Sudhakaran do not get a free run.

The list is expected anytime now and the present point of dispute is over the candidature of K.S. Sabrinathan at Thiruvananthapuram and V.T. Balaram in Palakkad. Sonia Gandhi is likely to prevail upon the estranged duo of Chandy and Chennithala so to ensure that there are no fireworks once the list is released.