Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 28 (IANS): The news is that estranged former top Congress leader Cherian Phillip who, left the party, while he was at the top, two decades back, is returning back and it will happen on Friday.

Sources close to Phillip said, he will call on his former mentor A.K. Antony at his house here on Friday and after his meeting, he will arrive at the Press Club and will make his announcement.

The return of Phillip was on the cards, when early this month he openly criticised none other than Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan who has been his biggest supporter since the former left the Congress and became a fellow traveller of the CPI-M in 2001.

The homecoming of Phillip then became clear, early this week, when he was given an award by two time former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and at that meeting, both of them did make things clear on what had actually happened and why Phillip left the party in a jiffy.

Incidentally the first call to 67-year-old Phillip, a bachelor, came from none other than present Lok Sabha member K. Muraleedharan, son of K. Karunakaran, who defeated Phillip at the 2011 assembly elections, when the two contested against each other.

Incidentally way back in 2001, Phillip revolted against the Congress party on being denied a ticket by Chandy who ran the affairs of the Antony faction and he left the Congress, only to be fielded by the CPI-M against Chandy in the 2001 Assembly polls.

At the polls Chandy won an easy victory at his home turf in Puthupally in Kottayam district.

Phillip was fielded in two more assembly polls in 2006 and 2011 by the CPI-M, but he failed to win and he was also given plum posts, first as the chairman of the KTDC from 2006-11 and then a cabinet minister equivalent post in one of the pet projects of Vijayan from 2016 to 2021.

The relation between Vijayan and Phillip turned sour in April this year amid speculations that he will be nominated for the Rajya Sabha.

But for the first time, Vijayan failed to support him, instead he backed his closest aides John Brittas who headed the Kairali TV and V. Sivadasan who was looking after the social media operations of the party from the state party headquarters and both went to the Upper House.

Since then Phillip started to maintain a distance from Vijayan and he denied the post of the vice-chairman of the Kerala Khadi Board, which was offered to him and the other day took pot shots at Vijayan for failing to rise to the occasion after the recent floods hit the state.

And with the CPI-M suffering a jolt, to get even with Phillip, the social media managed by the Left has started to roll out the statements that Phillip had made against the party and a few leaders, when he left the party.

Phillip has once again proved the saying that, 'in politics nothing is permanent'.