The Hindu : Front Page : Congress welcomes former DIC(K) men

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Wednesday, Oct 11, 2006
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Congress welcomes former DIC(K) men

Anita Joshua

Former DIC(K) leaders meet Sonia Gandhi, Ahmed Patel

REUNION: Former DIC(K) leaders with Congress president Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi on Tuesday.

NEW DELHI: The Congress, in a welcome gesture, has indicated that the seniority of all those who choose to return to its fold from the Democratic Indira Congress (Karunakaran) will be protected.

This has been communicated to the five leaders who left the DIC(K) recently and are now in the capital to finalise their formal return to the parent party by Congress president Sonia Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel.

The former Health Minister P. Sankaran, V. Balaram, M. A. Chandrasekharan, N. D. Appachan and D. Sugathan met Ms. Gandhi on Tuesday. According to them, Ms. Gandhi told them that she had issued instructions to all in the party to give due respect to them. The five leaders — all former Congress MLAs — had met Mr. Patel on Monday evening.

The five leaders and their supporters decided to quit the DIC(K) in protest against the move to merge the party with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

Briefing mediapersons, Mr. Sankaran said Mr. Patel had assured them that their seniority would be protected. ``A sizable number of leaders and workers of the DIC(K) are with us,'' he said.

The formal return of the DIC(K) leaders to the Congress will take place on October 28 at a Congress Solidarity Convention being planned at Indiraji Nagar in Thrissur, the very place where the octogenarian leader K. Karunakaran announced the formation of his new party (DIC-K) on May 1, 2005.

The five leaders said they had made no demands. They told Ms. Gandhi that they had left the Congress in the first place with `heavy hearts' and did so only out of loyalty towards Mr. Karunakaran. About Mr. Karunakaran, they said he would continue to have the support of some diehard loyalists across the State. ``But after Mr. Karunakaran, none of those who stay on with him will remain to support his son K. Muraleedharan, whose lust for power is the cause for the split in the Congress and the frequent changes in DIC(K) positions on political alliances.''

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