Assembly election in Kerala is due in April, 2016 but top leaders of the Congress are already admitting that the ruling UDF coalition it is leading in the State is unlikely to return to power as disunity in the party has peaked, controversies over the liquor policy the Government introduced recently and the changes brought to it later are raging and as corruption scandals are dogging the Government it is heading.
While one section of the Congress, which is now divided into two opposing camps, is blaming State party president VM Sudheeran, nominee of national chief Sonia Gandhi, for the situation, those who support him are blaming Chief Minister Oommen Chandy for creating such a situation by diluting the liquor policy and allegedly allowing corrupt elements to flourish.
“The Congress and the UDF will not be able to continue in power (after the 2016 polls) if things progress in this manner,” State Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, the third top leader of the State Congress, told a television channel the other day. He admitted that Sudheeran and Chandy were unable to stand united and this was causing huge problems.
Sudheeran himself had a few days ago said that a situation conducive to the continuance of the Congress in power after the election had existed in Kerala till recently but that situation changed on December 18 with Chandy announcing certain drastic changes to the liquor policy announced on August 22 which had envisaged total liquor ban in ten years.
Amidst this, Chandy seems to be the only Congress leader who still believes that the UDF can return to power. He keeps on saying that he had made the changes to the liquor policy infuriating a large section of people considering “practicality” and that he was capable of convincing his critics about the hollowness of all allegations against him and his Government.
Observers point out that the Congress in Kerala was able to provide some relief to the party nationally by contributing eight seats to its meager tally of 44 in the last lok Sabha election but that advantage is now being undermined by the clashes between Sudheeran and the Chandy-Chennithala combine and the various controversies.
“No other government has faced so many scams. For the first time a Minister is facing a probe for taking bribe. The Chief Minister’s name was implicated in the solar scam. The controversies over the new liquor policy are many. If the Government is still surviving it is only because of the weakness of the Opposition,” said a senior journalist of a pro-Congress paper.
According to observers, Sudheeran has failed in the mission – of ending the group war in the party – with which Sonia Gandhi had installed him as State Congress president and Chandy and Chennithala have forgotten their duty of insulating the party and Government against the political diseases which has almost destroyed it in the national level.
“What Chennithala says about the negative prospects of the party in the Assembly election to come is absolutely true. Apart from the pit of disunity the party has fallen into, there are more serious problems it has to deal with. It is not yet clear what positions its major allies will take in the next election,” the senior journalist said.
It is said that the Muslim league and the Kerala Congress (M), second and third biggest UDF constituents respectively, are sore over the way in which corruption allegations were raised against their Ministers. They allegedly feel that Chandy’s political shrewdness had worked behind these allegations and that he had got help from Chennithala for such moves. To top it all, the Chandy Government has now antagonized the Church, a staunch supporter of the UDF traditionally, by watering down the liquor policy.
“luckily for us, the CPI(M) and the Opposition lDF it leads are far weaker than the UDF. But that situation can change any time. Also, the BJP seems to be getting stronger by the day,” said a close aide of Sudheeran.