Amid speculations over Janata Dal (United) walking out of the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), the party’s Kozhikode district committee is in two minds about returning to the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front camp.
A meeting of the district unit held here on Friday decided to wait and watch until the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
“As of now, the party sees no reason to sever its ties with the UDF. Even discussions of the party switching loyalties are unnecessary. Certainly, the State committee will consider the opinion of the Kozhikode unit before taking any decision,” JD(U) district president Manayath Chandran told The Hindu .
Party sources said the JD(U)’s district units of Kozhikode and Kannur were reluctant to rejoin the CPI(M)-led coalition at this stage.
“It is the CPI(M) which wants the JD(U) and not the other way around. The CPI(M) was trounced twice consecutively from the Kozhikode and Vadakara Lok Sabha constituencies,” said a senior party functionary.
The JD (U) has pockets of influence across Kozhikode district. “The party had better relationship with the UDF than with the LDF. The UDF had been magnanimous enough to offer us the Agriculture portfolio in the previous Cabinet,” he said.
The leader said the party could not easily forget its State president M.P. Veerendrakumar “being humiliated and denied the Kozhikode Lok Sabha seat by the CPI(M)”. “The party can wait till 2019. We will cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said.
