The political crisis that has gripped the Kerala unit of the Janata Dal (United) after it severed its ties with the national party is likely to continue as a meeting of senior functionaries held here Thursday failed to find a consensus.
The meeting of State office-bearers and district presidents formed a five-member committee including party State president M.P. Veerendrakumar to take a final decision. The other members are general secretary Varghese George, secretary M.V Shreyams Kumar, State secretary general Sheikh P. Haris , and Kannur district president K.P. Mohanan.
Mr. Veerendrakumar told journalists that the Kerala unit would never accept the decision of the party president Nitish Kumar to be part of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). There was no question of the State unit joining the NDA, he said.
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It is also learnt that Mr. Veerendrakumar had a talk with Mr. Nitish Kumar and that the latter had urged him not to be part of the Sharad Yadav faction and not to associate with the RJD’s “BJP Bhagao, Desh Bachao” rally in Patna on Sunday.
However, party insiders said that all 21 leaders except Mr. Veerendrakumar, Mr. Sreyams Kumar and a district president, who attended the meeting, strongly argued that the State unit should support rebel leader Sharad Yadav at the national level. But they also wanted to ensure that Mr. Veerendrakumar, a Rajya Sabha, did not get stripped of his membership from the Upper House.
Party sources said that the State unit had been caught in a web of complexities ever since Mr. Sharad Yadav decided to take on the official faction led by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. At the same time, the official faction had also decided to quell any sort of rebellion with punitive actions including applying the anti-defection law against elected representatives.
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Thus the State unit is feeling the heat as it did not want to abide by the decision of the national party or lose it lone representative from the State in Parliament. Mr. Veerendrakumar is unlikely to quit his post and would rather prefer the national leadership to remove him from the party. That would give him some impunity under the anti-defection law, the sources said.