The Hindu : Pressure on Antony to take on Karunakaran

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 08, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala

Pressure on Antony to take on Karunakaran

By Girish Menon

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM June 7. With the KPCC executive scheduled to meet on June 9, the supporters of the Chief Minister, A.K. Antony, are putting pressure on him to go on an offensive against the senior Congress leader, K. Karunakaran.

The seniors among Mr. Antony's supporters are not happy with his position, particularly in the aftermath of the Rajya Sabha elections and the controversies it has thrown up. They have been demanding the ouster of the two Karunakaran nominees in the Antony Cabinet — Kadavoor Sivadasan and P. Sankaran — for having voted against the party's two official candidates. But Mr. Antony has preferred to adopt the path of reconciliation with Mr. Karunakaran, who received a setback when his nominee, Kodoth Govindan Nair, was defeated and some of his aides shifted their loyalties.

The UDF convener, Oommen Chandy's recent outbursts against the continuation of the two Karunakaran nominees can only be seen as an expression of frustration, even though the criticism had been aimed at Mr. Karunakaran. Significantly, Mr. Chandy is a politician who normally shies away from such public pronouncements, that too controversial ones. And his recent hard-hitting words were certainly not endorsed by the Chief Minister. There is also a school of thought in the Congress that Mr. Chandy's outburst has given a fresh lease of life to the dormant Antony group, which had remained silent all through the pre and post-Rajya Sabha election controversy. As such, the KPCC executive meeting would witness quite a few fireworks.

The Karunakaran faction is sure to bring out all weapons in its armoury to depict the UDF Government's performance as utter failure. The factional meeting has also made the proclamation, but attempts would be made to substantiate this at the meeting. Mr. Chandy's statements, which have continued to be a debating point even after three days, have also given an opportunity to Mr. Karunakaran to step up steam ahead of the KPCC executive meeting.

Mr. Chandy's statement clearly indicates that the Antony faction would not remain silent and would hit out. But the hardline positions of leaders like Mr. Chandy would bring more difficulty for Mr. Antony, who has had to grapple with a series of problems one after the other. There is also a general feeling among some of the Antony supporters that they are being gradually sidelined in the decision-making process and the current round of factional politics would help them regain ground they lost each time the faction had to concede to Mr. Karunakaran.

The KPCC executive is meeting for the first time after the Rajya Sabha elections and that too in the presence of the AICC general secretary, Ahmed Patel. With the factional ties being what they are, the KPCC president, K. Muraleedharan, is unlikely to extend the kind of support to the Chief Minister that he used to give prior to the Rajya Sabha election row.

Mr. Patel, who would arrive on Monday afternoon, would attend the latter half of the KPCC executive meeting.

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