Despite its frailties stemming mainly from internal differences and ideological problems within the leading party of the coalition, Kerala’s CPI(M)-led Opposition has shifted into poll gear with the obvious strategy of striking at the scam-beleaguered Congress-led ruling UDF while it is at its weakest.
With this plan in mind, the lDF on Monday held a dharna at the gates of the State Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram demanding resignation of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Finance Minister KM Mani over their alleged involvement in corruption. Observers think that this stir would prove to be just the start of a series of pre-poll offensives against the UDF.
local bodies polls in Kerala are due in September and the Assembly polls are to be held within seven months from then and the lDF feels that it is high time it started preparations in order to avoid a West Bengal-like situation. Prior to the last civic polls in October, 2010, the left had been in power in 65 percent of panchayats but after the polls this came down to 33 percent.
The lDF’s own house is not in perfect order with a new kind of dissent in the CPI(M), the CPI still struggling to get out of the payment-seat scandal in the lok Sabha polls, a not-so-small erosion in its support base after the RSP switched camps to the UDF last March and its inability to convert any of its agitations against the UDF Government into success.
But the left leaders are deriving confidence from the unprecedented crises the Congress party heading the ruling coalition and the UDF Government are facing in the context of allegations of corruption against Ministers including Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, the war within the Congress and the collapse of trust between the Congress and its allies.
To complicate matters further for the UDF Government, former minister KB Ganesh Kumar of the Kerala Congress (B), still a partner of the UDF, on Monday told the lok Ayukta that he stood firm on the allegations of corruption he had leveled earlier against the office of Public Works Minister VK Ibrahim Kunju of the Muslim league.
The charge against Kunju had come at a time when Finance and law Minister KM Mani of the Kerala Congress (M), the senior-most member of the UDF Cabinet, was facing a Vigilance probe for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 1 crore from the bar owners offering help to them for getting the licences renewed for their closed bars.
Quite strangely, these two developments have already sparked a row between these two parties and the Congress - rather the Chief Minister - as the KC(M) and Muslim league reportedly believe that both these allegations were the result of a conspiracy hatched by Chandy to keep them on a tight leash so that they would not dare switching sides to the lDF.
The left thinks that the clashes between State Congress president VM Sudheeran and group managers in the party like Chandy over the issue of the new liquor policy, the dislike the Church has developed for the Congress, the naming of the Chief Minister as a witness to be examined by the Judicial commission probing the infamous solar scam, etc would work out in its favour.
On Monday, Opposition leader VS Achuthanandan gave yet another reason for the Congress to worry with an allegation that apart from Mani, two Congress Ministers, Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala heading the ‘I’ group in his party and Excise Minister K Babu, a confidant of Chandy, had taken crores of rupees as bribe from the bar owners.
The shift into poll mode may also prove to be helpful for the leaderships of both the CPI(M) and CPI to avoid a lot of discomforting discussions over policies in day-to-day politics and ideology at the party conferences being held currently as part of the national congresses of both the organisations.