The Hindu : Kerala News : Rift in Congress comes out in the open

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 29, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Rift in Congress comes out in the open

By Girish Menon

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, JUNE 28 . The uneasiness in the Congress party in the context of factional feuds and the debacle in the Lok Sabha election came out in the open during the Assembly debate on the demands for grants for general administration.

Congress MLAs belonging to the Karunakaran and anti-Karunakaran factions were in a fix over the stand to be adopted during the course of the debate. The MLAs belonging to the Karunakaran faction would have preferred not to attack the Chief Minister, A.K. Antony, but were forced to make some adverse remarks as silence might have been interpreted as surrender in the context of the worst beating the faction took in the Lok Sabha election, which ended in the defeat of its leading lights, K. Muraleedharan and Padmaja Venugopal.

The anti-Karunakaran MLAs, who participated in the debate, would have preferred to dissect the Government's performance, but had to restrain themselves as it would have only weakened Mr. Antony. None of them, however, came up with unconditional support to the Chief Minister, who is suffering the ignominy of a total washout in the election. In short, the mindset of the Congress MLAs on either side of the divide was reflected in the debate. The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) MLAs contributed to the discomfiture of the Chief Minister, by accusing his Government of failing to address problems faced by backward classes and minority communities.

The ball was set rolling by the Congress MLA, P.P. George, leader of the Karunakaran faction in the Assembly. Mr. George alleged that the Government's functioning was caught in red tape. He lashed out at the Planning Board's functioning, which, he felt, had failed to deliver the goods. "During the tenure of C. Achutha Menon and K. Karunakaran, internationally well-known economists and subject experts were appointed to the Planning Board. But today, there is hardly any one on the board to give a direction to the Government's functioning," he said.

Without naming the Chief Minister, Mr. George said that the situation that led to the United Democratic Front (UDF) Government and the Left Democratic Front (LDF) Opposition submitting separate memorandums to the Centre should have been avoided. He feared that such actions would go against the State's interests.

Mr. George said that even though Kerala was the most peaceful State, people were living in fear, as there was no security. Everyday, the dailies were full of reports about thefts, attacks against old people and so on. But no concrete effort was forthcoming to build the people's confidence. The Lok Sabha election defeat was a reality and sincere efforts should be made to assess the real cause for the defeat, he said.

Another Karunakaran faction MLA, Savitri Lakshmanan, criticised the bureaucratisation of the Antony Government. She said that files were piling up in Government offices. Officials failed to give proper responses to the queries of Assembly committees.

Thiruvanchur Radhakrishnan, the Congress Legislative Party secretary and a prominent member of the Antony faction, said that he believed that it was not proper for a member on the treasury bench to criticise the Government just to win the applause of the Opposition. K.K. Ramachandran Master, another anti-Karunakaran leader, said, "The LDF did not win the Lok Sabha election. Rather, the UDF was defeated," he said quoting the comparative figures of the 1999 and 2004 Lok Sabha election results. He accused the CPI(M) of joining hands with fundamentalist forces and contended that the people had voted for the LDF not because they favoured the opposition front, but because of their disaffection towards the UDF.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala