The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : `Yatra' to set election ball rolling

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 05, 2005

Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

`Yatra' to set election ball rolling

Girish Menon

Karunakaran factor looms large, but Congress ignores it

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: President of the KPCC Ramesh Chennithala's `Chaitanya Yatra' is expected to set the Congress party's ball rolling for the upcoming local bodies elections and the subsequent Assembly elections.

Mr.Chennithala has succeeded in inducting a rare kind of enthusiasm in the party that had been tottering for more than a year since the massive defeat in the Lok Sabha elections. He has already set a frenetic pace for himself matching the one set by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. By now, the revamped party set itself a target. Its feeder organisations have been reconstituted and a series of programmes planned in the run-up to the local bodies elections.

The current enthusiasm in the Congress is mainly because the party has realised that its prime enemy, the CPI (M), is not as invincible as it appears to be, caught as it is by torrid schism. The SNC Lavalin case has become a rallying point for the Congress and Mr. Chennithala was quick to make CPI (M) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan as the main target during his campaign.

Given the poor level confidence in the party, Mr. Chennithala adopted the natural way to appeal to the anti-Marxist sentiments of the Congress workers who have been fighting the CPI(M) at the grassroots. It appears that the move was deliberate in the context of the expected alliance between the Left parties and the National Congress (I) of K. Karunakaran and K. Muraleedharan.

Mr. Chennithala is not bridled by factional politics like many others who had occupied the chair before him. He asserts that he has been able to establish a very good working relation with the Chief Minister who heads the Congress Legislative Party. "With this kind of mood, we are sure to catch up in the coming months," he said prior to leaving for Kasaragod to launch his `yatra.'

The dismal performance of the Opposition in the Assembly during the no- confidence motion has also added to the confidence of the Congress because the debate in the House, according to senior leaders, brought out the strained ties in the CPI (M).

The Congress has several pitfalls before it. For the present, it has chosen to ignore the Karunakaran factor. Party leaders assert that the impact of the split has been temporary, but ground realities appear to be different. A majority of the grassroots workers is with Mr. Karunakaran, particularly in the Malabar region and a few other districts such as Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram.

The Congress leadership will soon have to work out a strategy to counter this factor by the time the byelections to the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat is announced.

The Congress leadership has failed to induct fresh faces at district levels. It has been forced to accommodate old faces, many of whom had been enticed to stay in the party and not join the NC(I).

The second-most important issue the Congress will have to address is the political ennui that has set in a bipolar coalition system.

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