The Hindu : Congress factions stick to their guns

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 14, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Congress factions stick to their guns

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, JAN. 13. The pro and anti-Karunakaran factions in the Kerala unit of the Congress today held separate meetings here asserting their known positions on a change of leadership in the Government.

"We have not gone back even an inch (on our demand for changing A. K. Antony as the Chief Minister)," the Karunakaran group spokesman, Rajmohan Unnithan, said at a press conference held after today's meeting of the group. Sixteen MLAs, including the Ministers, Kadavoor Sivadasan and P. Sankaran, attended the meeting of the faction.

An hour later, the UDF convener, Oommen Chandy, addressed another press conference in the city after a meeting of the three groups opposing Mr. Karunakaran's move.

"There should be a strong action against those who engaged in anti-party activities... we are not against unity in the party. But it should not be at the cost of discipline," he said.

Mr. Unnithan said that the talk about the Congress high command working on a compromise formula to settle the issues here were incorrect. Certain forces were trying to create confusion among the workers of the faction by unleashing the propaganda that the faction had been offered the post of a Deputy Chief Minister, in addition to another Ministerial berth with either Finance or Home as portfolio.

"Such an offer has not been placed before Mr. Karunakaran... our demand is altogether something else," he said.

"They are mistaken if they are under the illusion that unity can be achieved by initiating disciplinary action against us. If the party and the UDF were to forge ahead, the Government has to come out of its ineptitude. The good thing for Mr. Antony to do is to tender his resignation to facilitate this," he said.

According to Mr. Chandy, the meeting of the anti-Karunakaran factions is unanimous in its view that going soft on the issue of discipline will not be in the interest of the party, the UDF and the Government.

Asked whether he and Mr. Antony were not speaking in different tones on this issue, Mr. Chandy said: "Mr. Antony is part of the national leadership of the party. His role imposes certain restrictions on him. But it does not mean that he and the other party leaders are on a collision course," he said. The sentiment at the meeting was that the Chief Minister could function as per the people's expectations only if discipline was enforced in the party, he added.

Mr. Chandy said that the present problems had begun at the time of the Rajya Sabha elections last year (with the Karunakaran faction fielding a rebel candidate and voting against the party candidate).

"The party had adopted a soft approach then. It did not serve any purpose... we are concerned that the problems would persist. Our meeting today requested the party high command to come out with a decision at the earliest," he said.

Mr. Unnithan said this was not the first time there had been indiscipline in the party. "If there has to be action against indiscipline, the party should examine what happened in the past," he said, in an apparent reference to the `machinations' employed by the pro-Antony group to unseat Mr. Karunakaran from the Chief Minister's post in 1995.

Reacting to this comment, Mr. Chandy said the camp he represented had no objection to such a scrutiny of the party's history.

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