The Hindu : JSS claim stalls UDF seat-sharing

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 29, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

JSS claim stalls UDF seat-sharing

By Girish Menon

THIRUVANANTHAPUREM, FEB. 28. The Congress today partially succeeded in bringing around some of the smaller UDF constituents which had demanded a seat to contest in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, with only the Jandhipathya Samrakshana Samithi (JSS), led by the Agriculture Minister, K. R. Gouri, and the RSP (B) clinging on to their claim.

The JSS's eleventh-hour assertion prevented the UDF convener, Oommen Chandy, from announcing the final decision on the seat-sharing process in the UDF. The JSS State committee asserted its claim for the Alapuzha seat, which, it said, was its area of influence. The RSP (B) also stuck to its guns for the Kollam seat for the very same reason and that it wanted a Lok Sabha seat to help it retain its status as a State party.

The RSP (B) general secretary, A. V. Thamarakshan, said that his party had informed the UDF convener of its stand. "The Congress party is a big one and it is free to unilaterally announce its candidates for the 17 seats, but we are not prepared to recognise this. However, we are not going to upset the UDF applecart and we would accept such unilateral announcements with protest," he said.

Mr. Chandy, after a series of discussions with the Kerala Congress (B) and the Kerala Congress (Jacob) during the last two days, succeeded in getting the leaders of these two parties, R. Balakrishna Pillai and T. M. Jacob respectively, to withdraw their claims to the Adoor and Muvattupuzha seats. Subsequently, Mr. Chandy announced that the Muvattupuzha seat had been allotted to the Kerala Congress (M), which lost no time in announcing its candidate, Jose K. Mani, son of the party leader, K. M. Mani.

Mr. Jacob and Mr. Pillai said separately that they had agreed to withdraw their respective claims in the larger interests of the ruling coalition. Mr. Chandy could heave a sigh of relief at being able to sort out the dispute over Muvattupuzha, which had threatened to assume the contours of a tiff between the two UDF constituents.

The Congress leaders might have succeeded in bringing around the UDF partners, but their ungainly attempts to wrest a seat has left relations sour enough to create problems for the campaign managers when the wagon hits the election trail. The terms and conditions for the withdrawal of claims is not known, but it is generally believed that it could be linked to the distribution of vacancies coming up in some of the boards and quasi-government bodies.

The smaller UDF constituents have their own contentions for raising claims for seats, with the primary one apparently revolving around the latent divisions in the Congress party, despite the onset of the unity formula.

Some of the constituents such as the CMP are of the view that the UDF partners should be given a participatory role given the changing the dynamics of Kerala and national politics. Almost all the UDF constituents are in alliance with the Congress mainly on account of their anti-CPI (M) bias. The key question that the Congress is finding difficult to address is the apprehensions of these smaller parties about its growing relations with the CPI (M) at the national level and their role in the Kerala context, where they are pitted against that party as a coalition.

According to the CMP leader, C. P. John, his party has been a steadfast supporter of the Congress for the last 18 years, fighting the CPI (M) in the State. But the new friendship between the Congress and the CPI (M) is now creating problems for his party, which has its own strengths in Kerala and several parts of the country as part of a Communist confederation. "It is in this context that we had made a demand for a seat in Kerala and several seats in other parts of the country," he added.

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