Kerala’s Congress-led UDF Government has failed in its bid to pacify the majority community outfits, which have declared war on it for its alleged policy of minority-appeasement, with its failure to induct State Congress president Ramesh Chennithala, belonging to Hindu upper caste Nair community, into the Cabinet in a key position.
The Congress and the Government had last week begun a serious bid for a Cabinet reshuffle primarily to pacify the majority communities but this became impossible after Chief Minister Oommen Chandy refused to make Chennithala Deputy Chief Minister or to give him the post of Home Minister.
“Chandy himself is behind this. He has scored yet another victory,” said G Sukumaran Nair, general secretary of the Nair Service Society (NSS), outfit of Nairs. “Immediately after the last Assembly election, we had told the Congress High Command that there should be no community imbalance in the Government. Isn’t it a fact that community imbalance does existIJ” he asked.
“Chandy has won once again (in cornering Chennithala),” Nair said, adding that the NSS had decided not to cooperate with the UDF in the present circumstances. “I must say that Chandy is behind the foul play,” he told the media. The SNDP Yogam, outfit of Hindu lower caste Ezhavas, also has adopted a firm posture against the Congress and the UDF.
The Congress had started the bid to reshuffle the Cabinet by inducting Chennithala into it in a key position so that the complaint about minority-appeasement could be addressed to a good extent. Presently, Hindus forming 56 per cent of Kerala’s population have only eight representatives in the 20-member Cabinet.
However, the reshuffle bid ran into rough weather with the ‘A’ group led by Chandy disagreeing to the demand by Chennithala’s ‘I” group for the post of Deputy Chief Minister with the charge of Home portfolio for him. Following the standoff, the Chief Minister and Chennithala held discussions between them but here also both sides stuck to their respective postures.
After the discussions on Monday, Chandy told the mediapersons that Chennithala had not expressed any desire to join the Cabinet. Sources said that Chennithala adopted this position after Chandy refused to allot a key Cabinet position to him. It is said that the Chief Minister had unleashed a campaign against Chennithala through some of his loyalists in the party and the UDF.
Chennithala told mediapersons on Tuesday, “I don’t want to speak politics on the anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi’s martyrdom,” prompting observers to conclude that he had much to say. Sources in his ‘I’ group said that Chennithala could complain to the Congress High Command saying that Chandy and his loyalists had campaigned to belittle him in the party and before the people.
A group-neutral senior Congress leader said that another objective of the reshuffle bid was to de-escalate the faction war within the Congress in the context of the coming lok Sabha elections. “However, it has only
worsened the group war. A reshuffle would now be possible only under strict instructions from the High Command,” he said.