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Not on a patch-up mission: Moily

By Our Staff Reporter

The AICC election observer for Ernakulam, Veerappa Moily (left), and the Kerala Chief Minister, A. K. Antony, at the Government guest house in Kochi on Tuesday.

KOCHI SEPT. 9. The AICC poll observer, Veerappa Moily, has said that he was not here on a mission to patch up differences between the Kerala Chief Minister, A. K. Antony, and the senior Congress leader, K. Karunakaran.

``My duty here is to coordinate the party's electioneering,'' he told a news conference. "There is no special mission, no reporting back to anybody and no special message to hand over,'' he claimed.

He was not here to solve any problem or play mediator. It was routine with the AICC to send observers to places where elections were held, he asserted.

Mr. Moily, former Karnataka Chief Minister and convener of the AICC's Empowerment Committee, arrived here this afternoon on a three-day tour amid expectations that he would mollify Mr. Karunakaran, who is sore over the choice of the Ernakulam candidate, and win over his group's support for the candidate. He was to have been accompanied by another observer, G. K. Vasan, but the latter had to delay his trip by a day.

Mr. Moily said he had met the Chief Minister, who was in Kochi, today. He would be meeting the KPCC, K. Muraleedharan, president tomorrow. Asked when he would meet Mr. Karunakaran, he said his plans would be finalised once he met the KPCC president. Mr. Moily said there was no extra relevance for the Ernakulam by-election. It was no referendum on the party's Shimla decisions.

Talks with Karunakaran

Congress sources said Mr. Moily, along with Mr. Vasan who would be arriving here on Wednesday morning, would hold talks with Mr. Karunakaran in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday. The spadework for the meeting would be made by Mr. Muraleedharan.

Mr. Moily today met the AICC general secretary, Vayalar Ravi, and several KPCC functionaries, apart from the Chief Minister. On Wednesday, he and Mr. Vasan would hold talks with Mr. Muraleedharan. They would call on all the Congress MLAs from the Assembly segments of the Ernakulam Lok Sabha constituency together. They would also address 14 block Congress presidents, apart from meeting the district leaders of the UDF partners. They would tour some segments of the Lok Sabha constituency and meet key party functionaries and important local personalities.The two observers, who will leave for Thiruvananthapuram in the evening, will return to Delhi on Thursday afternoon.

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