Kerala’s Congress-led UDF Government headed by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had started its fourth year in office last year with the confidence given by the front’s impressive performance in the lok Sabha election but when it enters the fifth and final year of its tenure on Monday, it is a Government that has lost its balance because of corruption charges against Ministers, coalition partners’ disgruntlement, intense group war in the lead party and the Chief Minister’s inability to control the situation.
“The people still have trust in the Government,” was how Chandy responded the other day to the criticism that his Government was under the “black shadow” of corruption but the fact is that even top leaders of his own party are not prepared to trust his words and behind-the-scene bids have already started for leadership change in the Government.
On Sunday, Chandy tried to put up a bold face by saying that the UDF would complete five years in office. “I am satisfied with the Government’s performance in the past four years. We are going ahead with total confidence. All the promises made to the people will be fulfilled in the next one year,” Chandy said but skeptics in Congress questioned his confidence.
The biggest issue the Chandy Government is facing is corruption. If Finance Minister KM Mani of the Kerala Congress (M) is in the dock for allegedly accepting Rs 1 crore as bribe from bar owners, the charge against Congress’s own Excise Minister and Chandy’s close aide K Babu is that he had taken Rs 10 crore from the same sources.
If the slender majority the Government is surviving on is what prevents Chandy from asking Mani, the senior-most Minister of Kerala, to resign in the face of the bribery charge, the reason for his inability to ask Babu to put in his papers is group loyalty. Babu has already made it clear that no amount of Opposition pressure will succeed in making him resign.
While a Vigilance probe is on against Mani, the first Minister in Kerala to be named as accused in a bribery case, the same agency is in the process of examining the charge against Babu. “Such a situation is unprecedented in Kerala. The sad part of this is that when all this happening, the CM seems unconcerned,” said a Congress leader from Chandy’s rival ‘I’ faction.
Convinced that the Chief Minister himself was behind the charge against Mani, his KC(M) has taken a stand of non-cooperation with the Congress in almost all matters related to the ruling front. Chandy cannot put pressure on Mani’s party because the nine seats it has in the Assembly is crucial to the Government which is surviving on a majority of just three seats.
The KC(M) is not the only disgruntled coalition partner. The Janata Dal (U), which has two MlAs of whom one is a Minister, is waiting for an opportune moment to leave the front. The RSP, which had joined the Opposition UDF in March, 2014 after leaving the UDF is unhappy. The Kerala Congress (B) with one MlA has already started cooperating with the lDF.
Observers say that Chandy’s rivals in the Congress see as the deadline for removing him as Chief Minister the civic polls to be held in September and the Assembly by-poll in Aruvikkara, necessitated by the death of Speaker G Karthikeyan. Negative results in these elections might ensure the end of the Chandy era, they say.
It was in this situation, senior leader AK Antony and State party vice-president VD Satheesan added fuel to the fire by criticizing the “all-pervading” corruption, triggering an intense war between the ‘A’ group of the party led by Chandy and the ‘I’ faction led by Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala. Other senior Congress leaders joined the row without much delay.
Expressing displeasure at the state of affairs in the UDF, the Muslim league, second biggest constituent of the ruling coalition, on Sunday said there was no meaning in going ahead without unity. Its general Johny Nelloor, chairman of the Congress (J), a minor UDF partner, said that the infighting in Congress had caused a crisis in the front.