The United Democratic Front (UDF) partners have failed to arrive at a consensus on sharing of posts of members to the director board of five district cooperative banks.
The UDF leaders would meet here on Monday to sort out issues ahead of the last date for filing nominations on January 22.
The UDF leaders had met here the other day and taken a decision to hold bilateral discussions at the district-level.
Sharing pattern
While the sharing pattern was finalised in nine districts, the district UDF leadership in Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Kottayam, Alappuzha, and Thrissur failed to sort out the issues.
The UDF has changed the methodology of discussions this time. Earlier, it used to hold bilateral discussions between partners only for the posts of president and vice-president of the district cooperative banks.
As part of its bid to consolidate its control over these institutions, the UDF leadership decided to share the vacancies to the director board prior to dealing with the posts of president and vice-president. This was intended to prevent votes getting defrayed.
If the UDF leaders fail to work out a formula to solve issues in the five districts, each would be allowed to file nomination papers.
Discussions would continue till the date of withdrawal by which time some formula would be worked out, according to UDF leaders.
Factional problems
Apart from the tussle between the coalition partners, the Congress party is also facing factional problems. At one level, factional preferences have helped the party in increasing its membership in the cooperative societies.
But, this had also led to aspirations among factional leaders, making it difficult for the party leaders even in those districts where the UDF had been able to clinch an agreement, they said.
The Congress party hopes to gain control of at least 10 cooperative banks, leaving one each to the Kerala Congress (M), Indian Union Muslim League, Socialist Janata Dal, and the Communist Marxist Party.
