Just when dissatisfaction is spreading among the allies of the Congress in the party-led Opposition UDF as major sections in the RSP and the JD(U) are examining the option of leaving the front, Kerala Congress (M), the coalition’s third biggest partner, has stepped up its attack against the Congress over the bar bribery scandal terming its top leadership as a pack of betrayers.
The KC(M)’s official organ, Prathichchaya, even went to the extent of likening the Congress leaders – mainly former CM Oommen Chandy and Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala though no names are mentioned– to Brutus over the scandal which had forced KC(M) chairman KM Mani to resign as Finance Minister in the former Chandy Cabinet.
The magazine’s criticisms, published in its editorial titled “Group Dance of the Betrayers”, have come close on the heels of Mani’s own statement that the bar bribery scandal was part of a calculated move to keep him and his party fettered to the UDF due to the suspicion that the KC(M) might leave the front to join the CPI(M)-led lDF.
Mani resigned as Minister last November following an adverse remark from the High Court over a Vigilance case pertaining to the allegation that he had taken Rs1-crore bribe from the State’s bar owners. The charge against Mani was leveled on October 31, 2014 by Biju Ramesh, himself a bar owner and working president of the Kerala Bar Hotels’ Association.
The KC(M) has always held – though not openly – that the conspiracy against Mani was hatched within the UDF (by Chandy and others), but the attacks against the two top Congress leaders became intense after they participated in the ceremony of the wedding engagement of Biju Ramesh’s daughter last month.
“The attire that would suit those who had played their roles in the bar bribery drama even while hypocritically showing friendship (with Mani) is that of Brutus who had stabbed Caesar… If somebody who has seen those who had gathered at the function calls it a “group dance of betrayers”, they cannot be blamed,” the Prathichchaya article said.
Even State Congress president VM Sudheeran had criticized Chandy and Chennithala for attending the function hosted by the bar owner whose bribery allegations against Mani and several other then ministers had contributed heavily to the devastation of the Congress and the UDF in the May 16 Assembly election.
“Those who had openly stated that Mani was innocent in the scandal themselves had forced him to resign by trapping him in Vigilance case,” the KC(M) mouthpiece said. Chandy and Chennithala had continuously argued that Mani was innocent but the Vigilance went on with its probe against him despite the fact that Chennithala was the Vigilance Minister then.
The magazine alleges that a feeling was created by Congress leaders that the charge against Mani was more serious than the one against then Excise Minister K Babu, a Chandy-loyalist, that he had taken Rs10 crore as bribe. Babu’s defeat and Mani’s victory in the Assembly polls were like a clenched-fist punch on the face of the ‘betrayers’, the article said.
Mani, who celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his legislative career last year, denied having any knowledge about the Prathichchaya editorial but the denial was not complete and categorical. “What has appeared in it need not be the party’s position. It is an independent magazine. Several kinds of articles may appear in that,” he said.
Though the KC(M), has not taken a decision to leave the UDF, the party has adopted a strategy of keeping the Congress and its top leaders on tenterhooks. “We won’t pardon them,” said a top KC(M) leader. The party, which has six MlAs, is even considering the option of sitting as a separate block in the Assembly.