The Hindu : `I' group `cannot be taken for granted'

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

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala

`I' group `cannot be taken for granted'

By Our Staff Reporter

The senior Congress leader, K. Karunakaran, talking to presspersons in Kollam on Thursday.

KOLLAM APRIL 17. The senior Congress leader, K. Karunakaran, has said that if unity within the State unit of the party is possible only if the KPCC president, K. Muraleedharan, goes to the extent of chiding his father, then it would be a very difficult proposition for him.

Mr. Karunakaran made this remark while talking to reporters here today when he arrived to attend the nuptials of the Electricity Minister, Kadavoor Sivadasan's nephew.

He said the five-member majority now enjoyed by the UDF Government was nothing but an unreliable figure since those members could make a cross-over even tomorrow if asked to, he said.

To a question whether it was the victory of the official candidates or the defeat of the rebel candidate in Monday's Rajya Sabha election, Mr Karunakaran said he considered it as a `faux pas'. The rebel candidate, Kodoth Govindan Nair, `has not been defeated', he said.

The Congress leader explained that Mr. Nair's nomination had been submitted only with the intention of inflicting a `mild shock' on the UDF Government to register protest against sidelining the `I' group within the KPCC. The move had been made by taking care to ensure that neither the party nor the Government was hurt.

Hence, he said Mr. Nair's failure to make it to the Rajya Sabha was not at all a setback. On the contrary, it had sent a right message to those concerned that the `I' group could not be taken for granted any more. To another question that there was a standing invitation from a couple of senior CPI(M) leaders welcoming him to join the LDF, Mr. Karunakaran said he was in no position to blame them for extending such an invitation. He said he would only like to be thankful to them who had shown such a gesture.

Asked whether the present imbroglio within the Congress reflected the KPCC president's incompetency, Mr. Karunakaran said he had never said that the KPCC president was competent. "On the contrary, it was my detractors who had all along been praising the KPCC president. That they have now taken a U-turn is another aspect," he said. Mr. Karunakaran said the UDF Government was engaged in placating the liquor lobby. The Kooppana liquor tragedy in Kollam was an off-shoot of this attitude towards the lobby. Except for ordering a Crime Branch inquiry into the tragedy, what concrete steps had the Government taken in this regard? he asked. Mr. Karunakaran said while the general version was that laxity on the part of both the police and the Excise Department was the cause of the tragedy, the Crime Branch which had been ordered to investigate the matter formed part of the very same police. Hence the inquiry should have been entrusted to an agency which had no links either with the police or the Excise Department, he said.

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