The Hindu : LDF to probe vote loss, whip up anti-Govt. stir

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 18, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala

LDF to probe vote loss, whip up anti-Govt. stir

By C. Gouridasan Nair

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM APRIL. 17. The LDF State committee has decided to take a serious view of the erosion of one of its votes in the Rajya Sabha election and whip up anti-Government campaigns to exploit the schisms within the Congress ranks.

Meeting informally here today, the LDF leaders took stock of the political situation, particularly in the context of the intense faction feud in the Congress and resolved to meet again on May 5 to chalk out specific agitational programmes with the intention of exacerbating the confusion in the ruling alliance consequent on the senior Congress leader, K. Karunakaran, adopting a rebellious posture.

Although some leaders have issued statements to the effect that the LDF would take the lead to bring down the Antony Government, there is no consensus on this point in the Opposition alliance. While a section of the CPI(M) and the CPI seems to favour a proactive line on the question of bringing down the Antony Government, the RSP is not agreeable to any such move. The RSP had in fact decided not to give its second preference vote to the dissident Congress nominee in the Rajya Sabha poll, Kodoth Govindan Nair. However, when the LDF leadership as a whole adopted that as a tactical option, the party also fell in line with it.

The CPI(M) itself has been at pains to make it clear that it does not propose to take the initiative to bring down the Antony Government and replace it with one led by Mr. Karunakaran. The party general secretary, Harkishen Singh Surjeet's statement in New Delhi today is intended to put the record straight. But this does not mean that the party or the LDF proposes to remain a silent spectator to the emerging situation in the State. The decision of the LDF constituents to launch agitations collectively and individually is intended to create a climate in which the Government would find it difficult to resort to repressive measures as it had done when the State employees and teachers went on a 32-day strike or when diverse other sections, including the Adivasis, launched agitations.

The proposed stir by the CPI(M)-led Adivasi Kshema Samiti (AKS) to occupy excess revenue land and forest land beginning April 21, though decided earlier, would be the first in a series of agitations on these lines. The Front leaders feel that regardless of whether there is action or no action against the Karunakaran faction, the division in the Congress would make the going tough for the ruling UDF and that if the LDF could put the Government on the defensive with a series of agitations, the crisis in the UDF would worsen.

On the question of vote loss, the sense of dismay is quite palpable in the Front. Initially, there was an attempt to term it a deliberate act, but soon the leaders had found that such an argument could prove costly. The attempt now is to identify whose vote it was that the LDF failed to get and to whom it went.

One of the ballots had the first vote cast in favour of the dissident Congress nominee, Kodoth Govindan Nair, and the second preference marked in favour of the LDF candidate, K. Chandran Pillai. There are all theories doing the rounds, but the Front's feeling that this particular ballot could only have been that of somebody in the UDF and that the vote that they had lost might have gone to one of the two official Congress nominees.

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