Kerala's Cong-led UDF loses a partner

The Kerala Congress (B) of former Minister R Balakrishna Pillai has left the ruling UDF for all practical purposes following a series of serious differences with front leader Congress, particularly Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, and some other constituents. Pillai, one of the founder leaders of the UDF, announced on Wednesday that his son and the party's lone MlA, KB Ganesh Kumar, would vote for Aisha Potti, candidate of the CPI(M)-led Opposition lDF, in the election of the Assembly Speaker on Thursday. The election was necessitated by the death of Speaker G Karthikeyan of the Congress on March 7.

The KC(B) had effectively gone out of the UDF with that party's decision to vote for the lDF candidate and its expulsion from the front was now only a technical matter, said UDF convener and senior Congress leader PP Thankachan. The front will take a formal decision in this regard at its meeting to be held on Thursday or Friday.

Pillai's party and the UDF had been at loggerheads for the past three years - as per his own admission - and the differences had become intense in the past six months. "There has been no connection between us for the past six months. Thankachan says our expulsion is now just a formality. In this context, what if we vote for the lDF candidateIJ" Pillai asked.

Pillai, chairman of the KC(B), had arrived at this decision after a reported interaction between him and State CPI(M) secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan. Though there had been no discussions on Pillai's chances of getting an entry into the lDF, sources in the left front said that this might happen sooner than later.

The KC(B) has raised serious allegations against the UDF and several of its leaders, including Chandy, in the past six months. 

Pillai had recently told a bar owner in a phone conversation that Finance Minister KM Mani of the Kerala Congress (M) had collected nearly Rs 20 crore from gold merchants, quarry operators and rice mill owners through 'sale' of Budget proposals.

Before that, Ganesh Kumar, himself a former UDF minister, had leveled corruption charges against a Minister during a speech in the Assembly. "We are being forced out of the UDF for pointing out corruption while the corrupt themselves are allowed to continue there. I am happy that we are being victimized for being whistleblowers," Pillai said.

After a meeting of the party leadership at Valakom in Kollam on Wednesday, Pillai said positions of power were being shared in the UDF on the basis of religion and caste under the rule of Oommen Chandy. "I need not say more. When I say that things are done on the basis of religion, everything is clear," he said.

It is an irony that the KC(B) MlA will be voting in the Speaker election for CPI(M)'s Aisha Potti, who had snatched the Kottarakkara seat from none other than Pillai in the 2006 election. Also, it was CPI(M) leader VS Achuthanandan who had pursued a corruption case against Pillai for 20 years leading to his imprisonment for a year in 2001. KC(B)'s exit will not affect the continuance of the UDF Government though its strength in the Assembly will come down to 73. After Karthikeyan's death last week, the Kerala Assembly has a total of 139 members. The lDF's strength in the House is 65.