The Hindu : Kerala News : A body blow to Congress: VS

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 14, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

A body blow to Congress: VS

By Our Special Correspondent

The Leader of the Opposition, V.S. Achuthanandan, watching the election results on television at his residence in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday.

THIRUVANANTHPAURAM, MAY 13. The Leader of the Opposition, V.S. Achuthanandan, has said the Lok Sabha poll outcome is a verdict against all forms of communalism and proof that a progressive alliance need not seek the support of communal parties and forces to win elections.

Describing the poll results a body blow to the Congress and the UDF, Mr. Achuthanandan told a news conference here today that the election outcome would trigger changes in the UDF and that signs of these changes were already in evidence. It would be wrong to devalue the significance of the election result by describing it the fallout of negative voting. The people, he said, have rejected the Antony-Karunakaran axis, the Muslim League leadership of Syed Mohammed Ali Shihab Thangal and P.K. Kunhalikutty and the Kerala Congress led by K. M. Mani.

Mr. Achuthanandan said the election result has proved his prediction that the LDF would secure a historic win in Kerala, but regretted that the NDA had got the opportunity to open its account in Kerala through the victory of P.C. Thomas in Muvattupuzha. The figures from Muvattupuzha would have to be studied in detail. If the ongoing debate within the UDF was any indication, the NDA got the opportunity to open its account in Muvattupuzha only because of the `immoral and unholy' pacts that some of the UDF constituents had reached with the NDA, he alleged.

The Opposition Leader said he would not seek Mr. Antony's resignation, but felt that the only option before the Chief Minister was that.

Antony must

go: Pinarayi

The CPI(M) State secretary, Pinarayi Vijayan, has said that the poll outcome, particularly the Power Minister, K. Muraleedharan's defeat in Wadakkancherry, is a sharp personal rebuff to Mr. Antony because it was he who had personally led the UDF campaign. Addressing a news conference, he said the Chief Minister should quit if he had even iota of political morality left in him.

Mr. Vijayan said the election result showed that sections that had deserted the LDF at the time of the last Assembly election over some misunderstanding had returned to back the LDF. This was in addition to a large number of people who had shed their misgivings about the CPI(M) and the LDF and voted for the LDF candidates. The Muslim League, he said, had also received a blow with its safe haven, Manjeri, being won by the CPI(M).

The CPI(M) secretary called upon CPI(M) and LDF cadres to accept the verdict with humility and strive to reinforce the confidence that those from the UDF who had come forward to back the LDF and those who had returned to back the LDF.

Mr. Vijayan did not fully agree with the view that the NDA had opened its account in Kerala as, in his opinion, P. C. Thomas could not be considered a true representative of NDA and there was no guarantee that he would remain with the NDA for long.

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