The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : NCP-DIC(K) merger to prove an irritant for LDF

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Sunday, Nov 12, 2006
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Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

NCP-DIC(K) merger to prove an irritant for LDF

C. Gouridasan Nair

LDF divided over question of admitting `new' NCP into its fold

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The merger between the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Democratic Indira Congress (Karunakaran) may not help the two parties achieve the large gains that they may have in mind, but it would certainly create an entity that would be an irritant for the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Kerala.

The merger conference, being held in Kochi on Sunday, might prove a damp squib as NCP leader and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar might not be able to make it to Kochi as he is hospitalised in New Delhi. Post-merger, the new entity would have to gain formal entry into the LDF.

The LDF is deeply divided on whether or not to admit an NCP led by K. Karunakaran and his son K. Muraleedharan into the alliance. There is division on the question both within the CPI(M) and among the alliance partners.

Among the alliance partners, the softest on the question is the dominant section in the CPI(M). They have excellent rapport with both Mr. Karunakaran and Mr. Muraleedharan and had tried their best to bring the DIC(K) into the alliance before the Assembly elections. The allies of the CPI(M), particularly CPI and RSP, too had worked overtime to see to it that the DIC(K) does not gain entry into the LDF. They were worried about the prospect of the CPI(M) using the DIC(K) to cut them to size and lobby hard with their national leadership to ensure that the CPI(M) Polit Bureau did not agree to DIC(K) entry into the alliance. Things do not appear to have changed much since then, though the NCP national leadership has claimed that it has had discussions with the CPI(M) Central leadership and reaching some kind of an understanding on what would happen once the NCP-DIC(K) merger materialises. The new outfit would get its best opportunity to woo the LDF when the campaign for the Thiruvambadi Assembly byelection picks momentum. In several elections in the past, the NCP has fought the seat on behalf of the LDF and has some marginal presence of its own in the constituency. Given the slender margin of roughly 5,000-odd votes by which the late Mathai Chacko had wrested the seat from the UDF, the help that the new-look NCP would offer to the LDF would prove a hard-to-resist one for the ruling combination.

That might well result in the LDF sidestepping the question of NCP membership till the byelection is over.

Technically, the LDF leaders need not answer the question, as the NCP is already a member of the ruling LDF. The refrain would be: Let the matter come up before the LDF State committee and we will take a decision on it. They know fully well that the problem, if any, would rise only when one or the other of the LDF constituents choose to raise the banner of revolt over the issue. Then it would become an irritant for the LDF.

If Mr. Karunakaran and Mr. Muraleedharan campaign for the LDF on their own as leaders of NCP in the bypoll, if the LDF nominee wins the poll battle, that might well give the pro-DIC(K) section in the LDF enough arguments to give a seat to Mr. Muraleedharan at the oval table at the AKG Centre.

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