The Hindu : Front Page : Congress keen on Rajya Sabha seat

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 06, 2006

Front Page

Front Page

Congress keen on Rajya Sabha seat

Girish Menon

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Congress leadership appears to be in an assertive mood to contest the election for one of the three Rajya Sabha seats. The allocation of the lone seat that the United Democratic Front can win under the current composition of the Assembly is likely to create more headaches for the Opposition coalition which is yet to recover from the shock of the defeat in the Assembly elections.

The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and the Kerala Congress (M) are sure to claim the seat, but the Congress leadership feels that it should get a nominee in the Rajya Sabha on the basis of the current strength in the Assembly.

Polls for three seats

The Rajya Sabha elections are to be held for three seats held by the IUML leader M.P. Abdussamad Samadani and P. J. Kurien whose terms came to an end and N. K. Premachandran, who resigned after being elected as MLA.

The IUML will naturally expect to get the nomination as it had held one of the seats. Mr. Mani is likely to invoke an old promise that his party will be considered when a vacancy arises.

The Congress leadership, on the other hand, will claim the seat as it does not have a representation in the Lok Sabha and would like to compensate this by getting the Rajya Sabha seat. With the Left Democratic Front victory in the Assembly elections, the political imperatives of the Congress in Delhi have changed and it has become all the more important for the Congress to shore up its presence in the Upper House.

If the Congress succeeds in convincing its coalition partners, the leadership will have to contend with the claims of a batch of leaders, including Mr. Kurien.

List of claimants

The list of claimants is quite long and stretches from M. I. Shanavas, A.C. Jose to M.A. Kuttappan. The claims range from adequate representation to a person belonging to the Muslim community to one belonging to the Schedule Castes. With the Communist Party of India (Marxist) giving more representation to the Schedule Castes, the Congress leadership will have to consider their claim. After K. C. Vaduthala and K.K. Madhavan, no one from the community has got nomination to the Rajya Sabha, according to sources.

The claims of the Muslim community will also have to be considered seriously, as the Congress has lost the support of the community if one were to go by the Assembly election result. According to indications from leaders in Delhi, the Congress high command is unlikely to give the ticket to tainted candidates as the first benchmark to weed out the numbers. The party is also unlikely to give the ticket to those who have successively failed to win elections. KPCC president Ramesh Chennithala made it clear that he was not in the race.

The UDF leadership is yet to begin discussion on the Rajya Sabha seat. Congress leaders will be busy with the District Congress Committee general body meeting the whole of this week.

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